Osho’s 5 meditation practices children can do for a sharp memory

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Times of India article from July 17, 2024, based on a talk with Ma Prem Devyani, Meditation Facilitator at Osho Dham

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girl dancing

Children feel misunderstood, afraid, and burdened by societal norms. Meditation helps by fostering inner silence, boosting intuition, self-awareness, focus, discipline, self-esteem, inner peace, and creativity. Struggling adults can guide children through fun methods, encouraging inner voice trust and empowerment, leading to happier, compassionate adults who understand and respect themselves and others.

The concept of meditation for children evokes a curious response from many people. While many can conceive of the potential value of meditation, there is often the question – what is the necessity? Children already live in the present, and are naturally meditative.

What is also true is that children often feel misunderstood, separated, alienated, and burdened by the ideas, beliefs, judgments and impositions of the society.

They feel afraid, confused, and in need of guidance from adults who themselves are struggling to attain inner clarity and peace.

Teaching children to meditate early on can help them learn to connect to their inner silence. With a little guidance and encouragement they can learn to listen to and trust their own inner voice, strengthen their intuition, and increase their self-awareness. As they develop the habit of looking inside through simple and fun meditation methods, children will:

  • Feel self-empowered
  • Build self-esteem
  • Learn to focus and discipline themselves
  • Gain access to their inner peace and creativity
  • Learn to respect themselves and others
  • Develop their ability to stay present
  • Become happy, loving and compassionate adults

In response to a request for a meditation method for children, Osho suggested the following:

  • Gibberish for 5 minutes: For this stage children should be given total freedom to express their feelings and thoughts in a language they don’t know.
  • Laughter for 5 minutes: They should be allowed to laugh totally. It should be belly laughter.
  • Lying down for 5 minutes: They should be still and silent.

A few other methods of meditation suggested by Osho for children include:

Dancing – along with singing, painting are activities which are elevated to meditation when we participate in them consciously and with our totality.

Whirling – “Children enjoy this very much. They should be encouraged to whirl. And if you can make them aware of inner whirling also, you can teach them meditation through whirling. When they whirl, children become aware that their body is whirling but they are not. Inside they feel a centering.” 1

Making faces – According to Ma Prem Devyani, Meditation Facilitator at Osho Dham, “Briefly, for the first 5 minutes, pull all kinds of funny faces, and let the body move about. In the second 5 minutes, sitting or lying down in silence.”

child laughing

Osho says, “The real virtue arises out of meditation, the pseudo virtue is cultivated. The pseudo virtue is part of character, the real virtue is part of consciousness. All societies live on pseudo virtue because it is easier to impose on children; it is difficult to make them meditators. That’s what people have thought up to now. It is not true: children can be taught to be meditative, and more easily than older people.

“But for centuries the idea has persisted that they are children – how can they meditate? Of course they cannot sit still like an old man, but there is no need to sit like an old man. Meditations can be devised especially for them: they can dance and jump and jog and run, and yet meditation can happen. Their meditation has to be very active, it cannot be inactive.

“If children are introduced to meditation from the very beginning they will have a totally different kind of virtue. Then you need not tell them what is right and what is wrong; they will know it on their own.” 2

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Featured images chosen by Osho News, credit to Laura Fuhrman on Unsplash (detail) and photo by Francesca Runza on Unsplash

Sources
  1. Osho, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, Ch 13
  2. Osho, The Imprisoned Splendor, Ch 14 (unpublished)

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