Y’dig?

Within the first five minutes of meditating with the students at West Side High, I felt relieved of all the pre-existing exhaustion within me. The environment where we were giving realization that morning was what most yogis would consider the least conducive for meditating – students were running and dancing around our stall and music was blasting in the surrounding areas. There would be the periodic random scream or popping balloon. But when I began to meditate with the students, I realized that we were all able to enter that state of silent meditation as easily as if we were at home before our altars. In fact, it even felt a little easier.

The hour or so that we spent meditating with the students at West Side High was so enjoyable. I loved observing and listening to the comments from each of the students, and seeing many of their faces relieved and satisfied after they got their realization. What amazed me was how sensitive many of the students already were to their own vibrations and how quite a few of them expressed a genuine interest in meditation, even though this event was a mandatory health program in their school. A few students were so moved by their experience that they said they would come to the weekly meditation meetings on 34^th street. One memorable student – a spirited young black man, who had a do-rag around his head and sagging pants – was so enthusiastic about his experience, that he immediately brought his friend to our stall. Another young woman who got her realization opened up her eyes and said “Wow. I needed this.” She mentioned how much emotional turmoil she faces in her life and how she will start meditating regularly to overcome that.

The method by which we gave realization to these students was even simpler than I expected it would be. All that we asked the students to do was to bring their attention to a few parts of their body, which were referred to by ‘normal’ terms – the center of your chest, the center of your forehead, etc. There was no waving of hands, no saying affirmations out loud, no confusing words. And no explanation needed to be given before we all meditated. Whenever I felt a catch in anyone, I would simply put my attention on their catch and silently say the respective mantra to remove it. (I found myself often saying the mantra for center heart.) Everything was so simple, yet effective. I was amazed at how strongly I could feel the students centers in my own Sahasrara and hands and how easily the kundalini in others would rise.

As I walked out of the high school, I already started assessing how I could change my approach to giving realization to people, especially at the weekly meetings that are held at my university during the school year. My experience at the HealthCorps event gave me faith in a fact that I often forget – realization can be given anywhere, to anyone, and in any situation. That too, in the most simplest of ways. All pre-existing ideas that I had about how to ‘effectively’ give realization, what meditative environment to create, and the types of people who will take more easily to meditation were dissolved after going to this Health Corps event.

Right after the Health Fair I had to go back to work for five hours. For the first time in weeks, I felt as if nothing in this draining city and in my workplace could bring me down. I was so energized by meditating with those students that during the course of the day, I felt my kundalini magnetically being drawn to my Sahasrara numerous times.

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“There are these peculiar faculties of the psyche that aren’t entirely confined to space and time; you can have dreams or visions of the future, you can see around corners and such things. Only ignorance denies these facts, you know; it’s quite evident that they do exist and have existed always. Now these facts show that the psyche, in part at least, is not dependent upon these confinements. And then what? When the psyche if not under that obligation to live in time and space alone, and obviously it doesn’t, then to that extent the psyche is not subjected to those laws, and that means a practical continuation of life, of a sort of psychical existence beyond time and space.” Carl Jung

admin Awareness, Knowledge, Spirit, Understanding, human brain, ydig Carl Jung, Death, death as a beginning

“Those Friday classes changed my life. They made me rethink about the way I approach life and interact with people.”

So reports Leslie Dolland, HealthCorps coordinator in the Bronx, on what one of her students, Joshua said.

admin Awareness, Enjoyment, Knowledge, Meditation, Truth, Understanding, human brain student on Sahaja Meditation

June 6, 2010

“I can’t thank you enough. Your energy calms students before we even begin meditating. This has been an amazing experience and I can’t wait to see what happens next year. HealthCorps is so lucky to get to work with you.”

Sarah Fishstrom, Kurt Hahn Expeditionary School, Brooklyn, New York

What’s been really interesting in  working in different schools across the USA is that in the schools in which the teachers throw themselves wholeheartedly and enthusiastically behind the HealthCorps programs, the results (perhaps unsurprisingly) are so much better than in other schools.

The teachers and staff in Kurt Hahn, from Matt Brown the headmaster, Eric Mendelson, the Dean, Miles Doyle, Charlie Maciejewski, and other teachers and guidance counselors too, some of whom attend the meditation classes too, give such enthusiasm and encouragement to everything HealthCorps does in the school, meditation included, that the results are far and away better than in most other schools.

Matt Brown commented too, that he noticed that the opinion makers, the leaders, amongst the students, all attend the weekly meditation class organized by Sarah Fishstrom.

Kurt Hahn is a really remarkable school, from the moment you walk through the door you can sense that it’s different, different standards prevail there and I would unhesitatingly recommend Kurt Kahn to parents in Brooklyn.

admin Awareness, Enjoyment, Knowledge, Meditation, Truth, Understanding, human brain good schools in Brooklyn, Kurt Hahn school, meditation for success in high schools

Meditation helps you in life

admin Awareness, Enjoyment, Knowledge, Meditation, Truth, Understanding, human brain Sahaja Meditation, Sahaja Meditation helps students pass exams

Does Sahaja Meditation help with exams?

I thought I was going to fail and I passed!

Over 50 students used Sahaja Meditation every day this week in a Brooklyn High School, at 8.30 am and at 12.30 pm, for ten minutes each time to help them cope with exam stress. The vast majority, over 80% said it was beneficial in helping them be at their best.

admin Awareness, Enjoyment, Knowledge, Meditation, Truth, Understanding, human brain Sahaja Meditation helps students pass exams

Robert Fisk: The innocent became the guilty, the guilty innocent

Something new was happening. These were hard men. There was no way of negotiating with them

Wednesday, 16 June 2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-innocent-became-the-guilty-the-guilty-innocent-2001678.html

We knew the First Battalion, the Parachute Regiment. “Tough” was the word we reporters used if the soldiers were beating up rioters.

Brutal was the word we should have used. But sometime towards the end of 1971, I think we all realised that the Parachute Regiment was being prepared for some pretty nasty confrontations. They were the hard men, the reserve battalion at Palace Barracks, Holywood, a boring seaside town on the south side of Belfast Lough, a unit that spent most of its time waiting for trouble.

Shortly before Bloody Sunday, I’d seen them confronting a crowd of angry Protestants just off the Shankill Road. The “Prods” had blocked the street, set fire to some tyres; they were protesting at the lack of security. So the local British battalion in the Ardoyne called up the reserves and the first thing we saw was an Army “Pig” – a big armored vehicle with a wide-bodied snout over the engine – come roaring round the corner, knocking a youth clean off the road on to the pavement. It drove straight into the burning tyres and the paratroopers jumped out of the back with wooden cudgels and got to work on the street lads.

There were howls of rage and curses from the Brits and eventually the Prods cleared off and the soldiers of 1 Para stood in the street looking bored. Then a door opened and out came a man in his fifties. A Belfast Protestant, hair greying, he sort of hobbled on to the street as if he’d been hurt badly years ago and he walked right up to a group of Paras and plunged his hand into his pocket. He brought out an old Army red beret with a metal badge of parachute wings fixed to it and a tatty old regimental tie.

The soldiers watched him, bemused. Then he began to tear the beret to pieces, right there in front of the soldiers, and ripped up the tie. The man was shouting ‘Bastards, bastards,” over and over again at them and he dropped the ruined beret and tie at his feet and stomped on them. The soldiers laughed. And the man kept shouting “bastards” and he was crying and then he shouted at the soldiers: “I was at Arnhem.”

What had happened to the Parachute Regiment? A week before Bloody Sunday, John Hume, the MP for Foyle, encountered a far more disturbing demonstration of power by the same regiment. There was a nationalist demonstration on the beaches of north Derry and the Paras had turned up and beaten the demonstrators and a Para officer walked up to Hume and – in a very English public school accent – threatened him. “I realised something new was happening,” Hume was to tell me years later. “Some decision had been taken by the military. I was very worried about this. These were very hard men. There was no way of negotiating with them.”

Could we have guessed what this meant? Or the libels that British journalism was to commit against the dead of Bloody Sunday in the coming weeks? As usual – and for Derry, read Fallujah or Gaza or any Afghan village where civilians get in the way – the innocent became the guilty and the guilty became the innocent. “Bordering on the reckless” – Widgery’s whining description of the British Army rabble that fatally shot 14 Catholics in the Bogside – was the only real half-truth to emerge from his disgracefully short and lazy report.

They are old now, those soldiers, the same age in 1972 as those they killed in Derry. I was on The Times – the glorious, pre-Murdoch Times – and I was not in Derry on the day. But for years I went there as I go back, still, to the scene of Middle East massacres. In 1997, home from Beirut, I was again prowling around Derry. Was anything left? In the wall of a ground-floor apartment in Glenfada Flats, I found two bullet holes from Bloody Sunday, two gashes in the cheap stucco and cement to remind the Catholics of the Bogside of the power of a self-loading rifle.

“There’s another hole round the corner in Chamberlain Street,” a young man told me. “Would you like to see it?” Cruelly, I told him I’d seen enough bullet holes in the Middle East and the Balkans these past 22 years. “But do people know about Bloody Sunday in Beirut?” the man asked. No, I said. Not a soul there knew – or cared – what happened here. So all the man said was: “Jesus Christ!” It is a name much invoked on the Derry memorials.

The most dramatic of these is a simple granite cross erected to the memory of the 14 “murdered by British paratroopers on Bloody Sunday 30 January 1972″. Beside it, back in 1979, someone had scribbled a note: “All we need is the truth to help heal the wounds.”

Did we get it yesterday? Was it enough? Certainly it is more than the Palestinians will ever get for the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre. Or the people of Qana who were demanding an inquiry in 1996 after Israeli shells slaughtered 101 civilians sheltering in the UN compound. The UN’s official report into the massacre implied that it was deliberate.

Lord Widgery was not so brave. Of 500 eyewitness testimonies given to him, he bothered to read only 15. Was he merely idle? Or was he a weak, morally enfeebled man, more fearful of condemning his country’s armed forces than he was of concealing the truth?

Or did we British journalists have something to answer for in our slavish adherence to the notion of the British Army’s integrity? I don’t think we cared about the Irish – either the Catholic or the Protestant variety. I don’t think we cared about Ireland. I don’t think the British Army cared. At last, I suppose, the Saville report has answered that scribbled note I found outside the Glenfada flats 13 years ago.

But at least the people of Derry care about others who have died unjustly. In 2003, as the Americans occupied Iraq, American paratroopers opened fire on a crowd of protesting Iraqis in the city of Fallujah. They killed 14, claiming they were shot at. Subsequent inquiries suggested this was a lie. A few days later, in Baghdad, I took a call from an old friend in Derry. He wanted to lead a delegation of Bloody Sunday relatives to Fallujah, he said, to show their sorrow for the dead Iraqis. I don’t think the Americans cared about the Iraqis. But the Irish of Bloody Sunday cared.

admin Awareness, Knowledge, Truth, Understanding, ydig Robert Fisk, Saville Report

June 3, 2010

A special thank you to HealthCorps coordinator, Jessica Anders without whom none of this would have happened.

“Hey, I want to thank you for showing me how to meditate. I also want to thank you for helping (me) forgive someone.” Aurelia R

“…. Hope to see you again and thanks for teaching my classmates and I how to meditate. That was a cool lesson. Cya” Daniel

“Thanks for coming. I was relaxed the whole day you came.” Shanya

“Hey, gracias for coming to this school and teaching us how to meditate, it really helped w/all the stress in my life.” Paul P

“…. I am always stressed but you helped me.” Eric M

“Hey, this is your friend Malik. Thank you for showing us how to meditate.”

“Can’t thank you enough for your dedication to the education of our youth….” Ryan (teacher)

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Today had a sweet sadness to it, Jenny Ninyo, HealthCorps coordinator organized a wonderful lunch for the teachers in the school where she’s worked for two years, bringing health, fitness, well-being and mental resilience programs to students and staff. The buffet lunch involved a plethora of healthy, beautifully prepared food, and one after another, the teachers came up to Jenny and said how much they’d miss her, for this is near the end of her two year stint as a HealthCorps coordinator. Jenny, as is the case with all HealthCorps coordinators is an extraordinary young woman of rich and varied talents – she is an expert at Hatha Yoga, a linguist, she teaches and tutors in Hebrew, she is a great cook and organizer, a great motivator and fun to be with. She’ll be much missed. The good news for us is that she’s staying in New York City.

As part of the lunch, an optional Sahaja Meditation program was available and about 24 teachers and 6 parents tried Sahaja Meditation. All of those I spoke to said this would be a very valuable practice, given what a stressful job teaching now is in Manhattan. Many said they’d love to attend the introductory evening to Sahaja Meditation to be held on July 8, 2010 at 7 pm at:

New York Society for Ethical Culture

2 West 64th Street at Central Park West New York, NY 10023.

And, as if by way of coincidence, who should walk in but Anna Mancini, who was teaching in this school as a substitute teacher. Anna kindly sat with Joan and I as we meditated with Jenny and a very nice math teacher, Laura.

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Dr Oz

Joan

Margarita

Rosie

We had a great time at the HealthCorps Highway to Health Festival, held in the grounds of the US Tennis Association in Flushing Meadows, New York. Probably 100 people including students, teachers and passersby experienced Self-realization through Sahaja Meditation.

Dr. Mehmet Oz visited each stall in turn and spent a few minutes with us. Anil Bandari extended an invitation to Dr. Oz to attend our forthcoming public program on July 8th, and whilst he said his schedule is to be in North Carolina that day but that he will try to reschedule and attend the Sahaja Meditation event.

Earlier in the afternoon, Canan Arslan approached Dr. Oz and spoke to him in Turkish and they had a pleasant conversation for ten minutes or so. Dr. Oz said how much he liked Sahaja Meditation and how pleased he was at what we are achieving in high schools across the USA. Canan asked him if he might mention Sahaja Meditation in his forthcoming trip to Turkey where he a superstar and he had an aide take Canan’s phone number and he promised to help if he can.

Manning our stand that day, we had Turkish, Indian, Afro American, Irish, Russian, Hispanic, English and White Americans. A great time was had by all.

admin Awareness, Enjoyment, Knowledge, Meditation, Spirit, Truth, Understanding, human brain Dr Oz, Sahaja Meditation