Archive for Sharing experiences
February 20, 2009
· Filed under Sharing experiences · Tagged children, ideas, lifehack, parents
In May 2008 I, the one who manages this blog, became mother. A daughter arrived in our family. And since that time I’ve been getting experience on how to be a mum myself, on how to raise, bring up, develop the baby and care for her. Together with one more young mother, we have started a new blog “Parents’ Ideas” to share the experience we have been getting.
Since we became mummies, our life has changed for ever. We have learnt to INVENT – thanks to our babies.
Life with kids is easy! Sounds strange? Sleepless nights, a stream of new responsibilities, all the habits and hobbies aside – in an endless care for the baby – how can it be easy?
It’s easy to Read the rest of this entry »
January 12, 2009
· Filed under Sharing experiences · Tagged children, collectivity, Sahaja Yoga, teaching, Upbringing
The first term in this academic year in the Sahaja Kindergarten “Cool breeze” has finished. The term has turned to be full of creativity. Everything started with a big sack of beautiful cloth of different types which was sent to us by Sahaja Yogis. When the sack was opened, the atmosphere was filled with a storm of creative ideas.
For the first autumn children’s party, marvelous costumes for kids (“September”, “October”, “November”, “mouse”, etc.) were ready. Then the turn of theatre puppets came. The puppets put on panjabis, saris and beautiful dresses. Then an idea came to make dolls for teaching. Their clothes (depicting different aspects of the chakras) became the material for Sahaja lessons. We had also got ideas for the performances about Deities: costumes of Deities were also made from the presented cloth. The children were very interested. Till the end of the term, they joyfully staged the stories and invented their own ones dressed in these costumes.
Art dwelled at the educational lessons, too. The children created such beautiful collective paintings studying collaboration with each other! They got much experience Read the rest of this entry »
January 9, 2009
· Filed under Sharing experiences, Stories for children · Tagged children, kundalini, kundalini meditation, meditation, Sahaja Yoga, Shri Mataji, story, teaching, Upbringing, vibrations
by Sia Reddy
It must have been the fifth time during the morning meditation that Mum told Shanti to just sit still! But no use. She is fidgeting around, playing with the song book, and if there is nothing to grab near by, she plays with her toes, her trousers, her fingers…
“Shanti!” Mum scolds again. “Please! I told you! Sit properly! Hands on your lap”. Shanti follows Mummy’s instructions for just about a second, until she finds the pattern of the carpet really interesting again and follows the lines with her fingers.
“Ok”, says Mummy now. “Listen. Why do you meditate? Hm? Tell me.” Almost six years old, Shanti has heard a lot about vibrations and knows a lot of mantras, but she has not yet really thought about WHY she should be meditating…
“To make Shri Mataji happy!” she replies. “That is also true.” Says Mummy. “Of course. But you really meditate for yourself and nobody else, not even Mummy”. “But why?” Shanti asks. “Why do I need to meditate?” “Mummy takes a deep breath and looks at Shri Mataji’s picture. After about a minute she turns to Shanti and says “Look. When we meditate, all the bad things in and around us run away. We can feel happy and light again. But meditation is so much more than just sitting here. If you imagine meditation being a huge beautiful mountain, we have properly not even reached the first step. But you know what the first step is?” Read the rest of this entry »
December 18, 2008
· Filed under Do-it-yourself, Sharing experiences · Tagged America, collectivity, culture, diversity, Diwali, diya, William Blake
You can make all kinds of diyas with vibrated clay, water and colors. Diyas are a great gift also as they can be made with pure vibrated products. This way we can fill people’s homes and hearts with vibrated art made with love (Priyanka J.)
The story below is taken from the blog “Monsoon Masala” run by Priyanka Joshi, a freelance journalist and mother of a 5-year old son. Enjoy and get ideas for your creativity!
“Have you ever seen a diya with traditional patterns from Turkish/ Japanese/Jewish/Namibian/Uzbek/Filipino/Mexican/American Indian/Iranian/Thai design, architecture and embroidery styles?
For 3 years now, I’ve been adding this international touch to Diwali by involving my friends from different countries to make diyas with traditional patterns found in their native cultures. For me, this is a deeply gratifying and a great “building bridges” activity between communities. For the whole month of October, we have been opening our home to people from all walks of life. They bring their kids, their parents, their neighbors. We share our stories of arriving in America, making it our home more and more each day as we drink tea, laugh, talk about life, raising kids, and Diwali. After some time, our fingers mold clay into diyas almost on autopilot, and our kids jump around us, gluing beads, feathers, fabric and sequins to these diyas. Even my 5 yr old son who doesn’t talk to girls (“…because they’re weird, only play with Barbies, and don’t like Spiderman”), gets okay with them while making diyas.
My dream is to, one day, Read the rest of this entry »
November 24, 2008
· Filed under Sharing experiences, Teaching ideas · Tagged children, emotions, kundalini meditation, love, Sahaja Yoga, school, teacher, vibrations
At a Professional Conference for Teachers, a Workshop was offered which culminated in self-realization. The title of the workshop was “Self-Regulation: Using the Child’s Capacity to Regulate His Behavior: Help children overcome their negative behaviors through song, “Creative Relaxation” and yoga. Simple techniques will be shared that are powerful tools to shift energy from chaos to peace“.
The Workshop was given three times to different sets of teachers. It began with music playing, relaxing classical music. Teachers were asked how they felt starting the session listening to music. Naturally, they all agreed it was enjoyable and relaxing. We talked about different things we do to relieve stress, some being productive, some not productive, like eating or shopping. I talked briefly how I practice meditation and what a huge difference it makes in my daily life. We agreed that a relaxed teacher is more effective in creating a relaxed atmosphere than a stressed teacher and that relaxed children are more predisposed to controlling their reactions than tense children.
The teachers then Read the rest of this entry »
November 24, 2008
· Filed under Sharing experiences · Tagged children, kundalini, meditation, Sahaja Yoga, Shri Mataji, vibrations
I have been trying to find a way to take Sahaja Yoga into my 7 year old son’s school for quite a while. So, it was a miracle when his Religious Education/Music teacher, Mrs Gow, asked him to do a presentation on Sahaja Yoga to the whole class.
On Wednesday, last week, he took in a framed photo of Shri Mataji, candle, incense, leaflets and the CD ‘Heavenly River‘ by the Kiev (Ukraine) Collective.
He set the photo and the candle and asked the class to put out their hands and listen to the music. The first part of the first track of “Heavenly River” is beautiful. It starts with the sound of the river bubbling along, (in Cabella?) then some santoor, which then fades into the river again. It lasts about 3 1/2 minutes. Perfect for the children.
After this he asked who had felt any cool breeze coming out of the top of their heads. 14 felt cool blasting and 2 felt heat. Oliver got those who felt cool to help raise the kundilini of the 2 that didn’t. The children then Read the rest of this entry »
April 23, 2008
· Filed under Children's wisdom and innocence, Sharing experiences
Be like children.
Jesus Christ
On Tuesday, I was visiting my sister-in-law Lyuba and her 10-month old son. All the three hours when I was there, we were “communicating” with Svetik (my nephew) with smiles, mimics and imitation of sounds and from time to time exchanging ideas on life with Lyuba.
Very often, you start realizing the things you have heard or read before only meeting them once again when they are expressed in other words by another person. At some point of time, our discussion with Lyuba approached the idea that you should strive for your thoughts to be always pure and then you (both your physical and energy bodies, health and vibrations) will be in purity and harmony and no negativity will be able to attack you. But it is not an easy matter taking into consideration that your chakras and, consequently, their reflection – thoughts, are often far from balance. And Lyuba told me the words of one of her acquaintances: “When you feel that there is no purity in your thoughts any more, ask God to place your consciousness into His consciousness”…
Before I went home, we had meditated. And the vibrations before, during and after it were such as usually one has at collective Sahaja events. Three hours spent with a child, with purity and innocence, three hours spent, mostly, in a thoughtless state, in the centre, had obviously contributed to it.
March 16, 2008
· Filed under Programs for kids, Sharing experiences
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.”
February 15, 2008
· Filed under Sharing experiences, Upbringing
We have really worked on ourselves while disciplining the child. We always noticed that he is not behaving properly when we are not meditating or behaving properly.
And one more thing we realised that if we keep on doing the wrong behaviour or wrong actions in front of him he picks them up like pointing finger, showing eyes, saying “no” for wrong things etc. So, we stopped doing such things in front of him. We tell him in a positive manner that “the thing is wrong to touch it” rather than saying “don’t touch this”. Also, if he is repeating mistakes, we ask him (though he is very young) that “what do you think, will Shri Mataji like it?”, and in many cases he would slowly slowly stop doing those wrong actions.
“…And then there is a way of correcting children. I mean, I don’t like that punishment, you can correct the children, never. But by telling them stories, by telling them, talking to them, by sorting out with them, you can work it out very well. And if you talk with them, I tell you, these days the children are so wise, that they immediately take to wisdom, immediately. When they talk, they talk wisdom. I mean all of them sometimes, if you talk to them, you feel you are amongst grandparents or great-grandparents, the way they are talking about things. So, you have to understand that these are special children, are to be treated with respect and to be brought up with respect and instill in their mind that: “You are special children,” that “You are children who have to change the world. You have come on this earth for a very great purpose and that’s why you have to be brought up like that…
…And then the disciplining also comes in children when they understand that they are …, they themselves discipline. So, the first thing is to instill in them the sense of security and a sense of self-respect. I think this is the most important thing we have to do….” (Shri Mataji, Children, Parents, Schools, 1985)
An example:
We both had a bad habit Read the rest of this entry »
February 2, 2008
· Filed under Sharing experiences, Teaching ideas, Upbringing
The first term in the Russian Sahaja kindergarten “Cool breeze” has come to an end. Little children were being taught to walk, they were taking the first steps. As they are glad, so their mothers are glad, too. Among teachers and aunties the belief even appeared that the kindergarten is a place where pure desires are fulfilled. Because if you want something, everything is solved, everything is organized.
This is really a Russian project in which the efforts and vibrations of the teachers, tutors and parents of various Russian cities were combined. In the first term 18 children (6 of which came from other cities of Russia) lived in the kindergarten. First it was rather difficult, because this project differs from all the others which we had had in Togliatty. We learned all together.
And collective aspiration for developing this project has worked out! Teaching activity was filled with various lessons according to the pre-school curriculum. We began to coach children of the preparatory group for school. This work will be continued in the second term.
At Sahaja lessons and daily meditations children learned to balance themselves using various cleaning techniques, to conduct meditation and to sing bhajans.
At weekends various trips were organized: to the forest, to the city Philarmonic Society, to the winter-field, along the Volga (we went along the river by yacht).
In the second term, we are going to add visits to the theatre and staging stories to our leisure activities. We plan to introduce lessons of English as well.
We would like to tell you about the final holiday. We have worked with children for about 12 years, we have never had such a balanced holiday before. Everybody just dissolved. The aim of the festive occasion was to sum up the term, to consolidate the knowledge received by the children and, which is more important – an ability to put this knowledge to life. In general, only adults were preparing the holiday, so the scenario of it was composed in the form of a theatre – impromptu. We made up rather vital situations (those we watched in the kindergarten during the term) which the kids should have overcome using the knowledge and experience received. The examination was passed.
With respect,
The organizing committee
