Children’s Land

Yesterday we had our first of five scheduled programs, duration 30 minutes, at the Bergenfield Head Start Program.

We were two groups of two yogis introducing Sahaja Yoga simultaneously in two classrooms of children age three to five. There were twenty children in each group accompanied by their teacher and a teaching assistant. All the children and their teacher (a lovely lady from Iran and a long time US resident) were sitting in a circle on a red carpet. Heidi and Ophelia sat opposite each other in the circle; A 11×14″ colorful chakra diagram of a child in lotus posture was placed on a display panel in front of the children. The child’s face had features which could be attributed to any of the many nationalities represented by the Head Start children, combination of Asian, Hispanic, European, etc.

Heidi started the session by asking if the children could take off their shoes. The shoes were placed behind the children and Heidi proceeded to guide the children in stretching exercises, one of which was stretching up their arms several times and wiggling their fingers in the air. At the end of the stretching which lasted no more than two to three minutes, the children were told to shake out their wiggles in their hands and feet, so they could sit calmly in lotus posture. Ophelia then introduced the idea of a star was shining far up in the sky and how the children could reach it, but first putting their attention on a seed that was at the bottom of their spine and that by raising it up, up, up it would come up to reach the sky. Then, she asked them to raise their right hand (the teacher added, “your writing hand”) which they all did, and Ophelia told them to put their hand on their heart.She asked them, “Do you know what is in your heart?” One of them said, “a flower” and Ophelia said, ‘Yes, but what else?” and then she said, “It’s love. This is where you feel the love of your mommy and your daddy, your teachers, etc.”She then asked them to close their eyes and feel the love. The teacher helped by directing the children to do as they were instructed. Then Ophelia and Heidi went around and checked the children’s vibrations and helped raise their kundalinis. Heidi also worked with the teacher and she felt the energy and was very positive about the experience. The children eventually became more silent and some of them really seemed to fall into meditation. The whole room became calmer as the vibrations permeated the atmosphere. The children were guided all along, to keep calm so they could feel the love in their heart.

When the children opened their eyes, they were asked to put one hand then another, on top of their heads to check if they felt the “cool breeze.” Some children said they did, others said they felt the flower, and so on. The children were told that they could send the love they felt in their heart to others and to the whole world.

Miss Holma, their teacher, exclaimed that they would start each day with feeling the love in their heart. Finally, the children were shown how to raise this love from the seed every day.

The teacher said next time they would try to have a video camera in the classroom.

We all parted, smiling and hugging each other, and really “connected.”

October-November 2007

On October 10, in a library the first program “Spiritual and Moral Backgrounds of Ethic Culture of Ukraine” took place.  There were more than 130 people. Our public organization “Vishwa Nirmala Dharma” is known in the city. That is why we had such a big audience.

On October 11, we worked in School #17, Nikolaev City, Ukraine, giving lectures on the following topics:

- Symbols (grade 7);

- Music in our life (grade 7)

- Watching the film by Plyikin “New Model of the Universe” (grade 9-10)

- Rude words: what do they bring (grade 5-6)

- A Play-Program (grade 3-4)

On 15 of November, on the International Day without Smoking, we conducted a program on bad habits and on how to overcome them (smoking, alcohol, drugs).

On 29 of November – “The Purity of Human Relationships (the effect of telegony, precautions against AIDS)”.

With love,

Svetlana

About 3 months ago my wife Leela was asked by one of the teachers, at our kid’s school if she would like to offer a meditation class for any interested kids, after school. You see my kids go to a public school call “open class room.” In this school it is required for a parent to help every week in the class room. So many parents with special knowledge’s like science etc. will help teach a subject. Or parents just help out the teacher with grading, or arranging assignments etc.

Anyway after school they offer different activities, and Priya’s teacher had noticed that she was somehow more balanced than the other kids. So this brought about her asking Leela to conduct a meditation class.

The fist class was in November and the turn out was great - 16 kids and they all loved it. So much so that when the following week came the kids were asking Priya, our daughter, questions about what they would be doing that day and saying how much they enjoyed it.

Then came the second class and Leela again had 16 kids come. Some of them were really benefiting from the experience, and they loved it. Also some of the parents commented on how much calmer their kids were after the class.

Then came Christmas break and so everyone was off. Last week the teacher asked Leela if she wanted to continue with the class. There had been a little bit of a conflict of after school activities because one of the other fathers decided to have a chess club on the same day. So Leela was not sure if the kids would want to go to meditation or to the chess club. But the teacher informed her that she had already received 12 inquires for meditation. So Leela agreed.

Everything was great, and to this point now one can be happier that such an event is happening in LA. After all how great it is that we can possibly save these young children from the strife of our world, and the fact that they want such a subtle experience is a wonder.

So this morning Leela was sick, and as we sat around the breakfast table we were discussing how we needed to call all the parents of the children, that would be coming today for meditation, and let them know that it would be canceled. They would need to know so that they could pick up their kids right after school instead of an hour later when the meditation class would have been over.

Suddenly I found myself saying, “why cancel the class Priya can do it.” And Priya Read the rest of this entry »

With some Sahaja Yoginis  I started a new program for children (from three to five years old) in a public school and what we do for the moment is some play with the music and songs. We start with natural sounds (water, wind, birds) and after we suggest to the children to relax closing their eyes and trying to feel like a tree inside the wood. We make them listen to the wind (that is Shri Mataji blowing, taken from a CD) and after the tree grows (they stand up and we do some breathing and movements with music).

They enjoy this very much. At the end we raise the kundalini with a little song (that speaks about a butterfly that flies high on the top of the head).

Fiorella

In November, a sister who has studied Indian dances for 10 years came to our city. While her staying here, we organized 2 public progs with Indian classic music and dances and one prog for 3-4 year olds in a kindergarten. Concerning the prog for kids, at the beginning one sister told a story to the little ones that “they were going to India” showing them a map of the world (then the description of the animals and people of this country followed) trying to speak not in a monologue but to organize a dialog asking the kids some questions. One of the questions was: “By what means do you think we will go there?” The kids offered many ideas but none was right. The right one was: on a magic breeze of love. “Do you feel this breeze on your palms? Let us raise our hands and catch the breeze. One-two-three. Here we are - in India”. At this point the music started and the other sister appeared in her Indian costume. She performed a short greeting dance.

Then saying that in India dances are devoted to Deities, the first sister told the kids about Shri Ganesha showing them a big poster with His image. “Shri Ganesha likes when children are obedient and honest. He Himself always listens to His mum”. The legend (its abridges version) about the creation of Shri Ganesha followed. The idea was emphasized that Shri Ganesha worships His Mother and He is very strong. He also defends children if they behave nicely. But is they are mischievous, he plays tricks on them. A dance devoted to Shri Ganesha followed.

Then the sister who danced told the children some words about Indian dances in general and invited the children to have a short dance break (as it is difficult for the little ones to sit for a long time). Another dance performed by the sister followed next as “we all know that people dance when they are happy”.

At the end, they the adults and children caught the breeze of love again and went to the kindergarten “as they had to come back in time for lunch”: “Let us put our hands on our hearts as the breeze has appeared from our love. Let us remember how we love our mother. Our love is turning into the breeze and one-two-three… we are in the kindergarten again”.

Together with the children we were going up the chakras following the scheme of the subtle body designed for children.

We studied the number of petals, learnt the colors of the chakras and then there was a quize: guess what the chakra is by the color and the number of its petals. After it, each child coloured the center (=a flower cut out of white paper prepared in advance) he/she liked most of all. At the same time one of the adults drew a silhouette of a boy and the children glued the coloured flowers into it. Finally we got a very cheerful boy with the centers of different colours.

Before the kids started to colour the chakras, the yogini leading the program made a very nice analogy between our subtle body and a rainbow. “The sun light which makes everything around bright seems transparent to us but when it gets onto a drop of water it starts to play with all the colours of a rainbow. We also have such a sun inside and it also creates different colors”. The sister painted lines of colours on a sheet of paper using water colours (making the edges of each of them flow into the next color): red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, blue, purple. The flower of Muladhara is red, Swadisthan – between orange and yellow, Nabhi – green, Anahata – between green and light blue, Vishuddhi – blue and the white part of the paper – for Aghia. Sahara is combining all the colors.

After it, a sort meditation followed. And then, when we all were going up our own chakras, the adults were singing the music notes: sa, re, ga, ma, pa, da, ni, sa. Vibrations obviously became stronger.

At the last program we talked about Mother Kundalini and the Mother principle in general, explaining it with the Mother Earth and how she cares and nurtures us. Then the fruits and vegetables came in. For this we brought some fruit and vegetables to the class. I made 3,5 kg of red, green and blue play dough and we tried to recreate the fruits and veg with the play dough. Just simple, like banana, apple, broccoli, grapes etc.

The veggie play dough worked brilliant!

Sia

On July 20, 2007, we conducted Sahaja programs in a children’s camp “Yunnaty” (near the City of Cherkassy, Ukraine). As usual, spontaneity won. We learnt about the program just 4 days before it and we had to prepare a program forkids of 10-13 years old during a very short period of time. As it was a working day, we did not count on our bhajan-group. Some items of the program were born spontaneously which were united in one program on the day of our arrival to the camp.

A small cozy hall, which we found ourselves in, met us with about 80 kids. A sister and a brother were conducting the program in national costumes (the brother – in Ukrainian and the sister – in Indian). We put an accent on games, competitions, dances and songs.

First we suggested the children to learn a song in three languages: Russian, Japanese and Spanish. When we were singing the words “If you like it, do so”, the children were following the presenters raising the Kundalini. When the same words were sung in Japanese (the country of the rising sun), the children showed a sun around themselves (bandhan). When the same words were sung in Spanish, we all clap our hands. At the end, we made one complete song in three languages from all these words and the raising of the Kundalini and a bandhan with joyful clapping were made to the accompaniment of it. Read the rest of this entry »

April 27, Sevastopol, Ukraine

Real experience

According to the scenario, a fairy should come to the children, tell them about flowers and give them presents.

Vitaliya, a Ukrainian yogini, was that fairy. There were also Serezha and Olya from Simpheropol – our musicians. They came and sang a magic song about a flower which is opening above the head. The kids repeated all the movements after the fairy and listened to the breeze going from the wings of a magic butterfly with joy.

The song was the following: Read the rest of this entry »