Wednesday, Dec 25 2024  

MY EXPERIENCE WITH MEDITATION AND ITS BENEFITS - 01 Sep 2014

Meditation is for kids too!

As Swami says, the 1st Code of Conduct in the 9-Codes of Conduct is “Daily meditation and prayers.”

When I was younger, I started doing meditation and daily prayers with my mother in the evening before I slept, each day. She would always narrate to me a guided meditation script, one that is similar to what we hear at bhajans every Monday evening.

The mediation we do at the Centre is known as Jyothi Meditation where we imagine a light at the centre of our forehead and slowly move the light to our senses and limbs and then finally being part of the Light.

I must say that guided meditation made me sleep fast and very well at night. In the morning, my mind would be cleared of all the WORRIES.

And if we think that 8 and 9 years olds do not have worries, I invite everyone to draw Maths models and solve maths problems for my teacher, Madam Yeo and it will become crystal clear why meditation is so important for me.

When I was in Primary 1 and 2, instead of finishing my homework, my mind would wander to beautiful places and I would daydream. My teachers and parents were concerned, as I would take a long time to finish my work. My mother then introduced the “Monkey Mind Meditation” to me. “Monkey Mind Meditation!” So funny and interesting! How do we keep a monkey still?

The Monkey Mind Meditation is when one imagines a circus monkey on the right hand side. The monkey has a chain around its neck. The chain is linked to the person. The monkey represents the mind. Then, one must ask the monkey to sit and the monkey will stop “monkeying” around. When this happens, the mind will also stay quiet.

This form of meditation is not so boring to me. It has helped me focus better in class and calmed my mind.

Meditation can help you deal with your friends and family as well. I have a friend named Megan who used to make fun of me and speak rudely to me. Her behaviour troubled me a lot. My mother then taught me another form of meditation - what she calls - Soul-to-Soul Meditation.

In Soul-to-Soul Meditation, I visualised my friend and myself as large balls of light. In that form, I spoke to Megan’s light. I told her, I didn’t understand why she was troubling me and if I did something wrong to her, I asked for her forgiveness. To my surprise, Megan gradually stopped disturbing me. Now, she is more polite to me. Now that is the power of meditation!

You can do meditation at anytime and anywhere. However, I found out that meditation needed practice the more I practised, the more comfortable I felt.

Meditation also helps you in reducing anger.

Suppose your brother annoys you (And Yashi, my brother does this all the time – annoying fellow) and you get this strong urge to smack him. At this point of time, you should do your meditation. Smacking your brother would be fun but sadly wrong to do so. Fortunately for Yashi, I think I have been successful staying calm because I have not been smacking my brother (so often…).

I am not sure if the above techniques can be called meditation. I know that it starts with using my mind and my heart to go deeper and to think of Swami. These techniques have made me positive and to think positively, not only of me but of others too.

I would like everyone to know that these techniques are very powerful. It can change how we feel, make our friends be nicer and keep us calm, well, most times at least.

Swami says that He resides in the heart of everyone. I know that I feel good after meditation. That good feeling must be Swami reassuring me that He is always there. I pray to Swami to guide me on meditation so that I can continue to feel Him and to stay positive always.

Thank You and Jai Sai Ram

Sis Kiran Anil Lalwani
Group 3