Schoolchildren and Meditation
Maureen H. Murdock is a
classroom teacher, educator, and therapist who conducts teacher
workshops nationally and is the author of Spinning Inward: Using
Guided Imagery with Children for Learning, Creativity and Relaxation.
In her article "Meditation with Young Children," she describes her
pupils’ experiences with meditation. Utilizing Deborah Rozman’s
approach,1 itself based in part on the Hindu practice of transcendental
meditation,2 Murdock describes the following results with elementary
schoolchildren who practiced so-called "energy meditation." This is
where the child is to "feel the top of your head and now your whole head
disappears into light. Now there is no body, only light. Now in that
stillness, go deep inside the real you, that which is you without your
body." This is what some of the children experienced:
• "I felt like I dissolved
part by part."
• "I looked down from the
ceiling and saw my body here."
• "My body disappeared."
• "I am the world."
• "The white light was real
big like a wave. Air added on to it and it went through my body. The
wave went through my body. The light went away like night and I
started to feel cold."
• "I had lights all around
me.... I was shimmering with white light...."
• "When it came up to my
neck, it went back down and I couldn’t let go of my head."
• "When all of my body
vanished into white light I felt there was a rainbow going all over
me"3
Because of the religious
nature of her meditation program, Murdock does not use the term
"meditation" when talking with parents. She is careful to use a
"neutral" term like "centering":
We discussed how we would
broach the subject to parents, and I told them that I had decided to
use the term "centering exercises." This was a more specific
description of the exercises than "meditation." Also, the school, St.
Augustine’s, is non-sectarian, serving families of diversified
religious backgrounds, and I did not wish to advocate or appear to
advocate an ideology, religion, or identification with a guru or
organization. We began meditating with the children from the first day
onward.4
Thus, "The parents were
informed at the beginning of the year at a parent meeting of my
intention to use ‘centering’ exercises at the beginning of each day with
the children."5 She also noted that the "parents were very
pleased" about her use of "centering" in the public classroom with their
children.6 Yet when asked whether the children were actually meditating,
she said, "My observation of the children over a nine-month period
convinced me that most were, indeed, meditating."7
Deborah Rozman is an
educational consultant who teaches workshops nationally and is the
author of Meditation for Children and Meditating with
Children: The Art of Concentration and Centering. (As noted, Maureen
Murdock uses Rozman’s approach.) In Meditation for Children,
Rozman admits that children may encounter "frightening experiences in
meditation," and she offers this advice: "If you ever feel scared that
there are bad vibes, monsters or evil forces attacking you, immediately
call on your higher Self,..."8
Rozman also encourages public
schoolchildren with telepathy exercises, and how to see auras and feel
colors, and in psychic divination (e.g., dowsing where she tells
teachers, "Make pendulums for everyone"). She also promotes "channeling
energy,"9 in which children close their eyes and send energy from their
right palm into their left palm. Children are to practice this and to
concentrate on it until they actually feel psychic energy traveling
between their palms. Then they are to transfer this energy into other
students. For example, "Imagine the energy flowing into the top of the
head through the heart and out the arm into the heart of the person in
the center."10 Children are also instructed to chant, "Ooooommmmm as you
concentrate and send energy from your hands and voice. Direct the energy
in your mind to someone you know.... By sending energy through the palm
of our hand into the hurt in another or in ourself we can help heal
it.... We can channel energy to plants and animals as well as people."11
And, "Keep the imaging and visualization going. Energy won’t flow out
your hand unless you send it out, which means concentrating."12
In essence, Rozman, Murdock,
and teachers like them are preparing children to develop psychically and
to be open to becoming psychic healers and occultists. Maureen Murdock
is correct when she says, "The implications of using meditation in the
classroom are vast."13
Notes:
1 Deborah Rozman,
Meditation for Children (Boulder Creek, CA: University of the
Trees Press, 1989).
2 A critique is found in
John Weldon, Zola Levitt, The Transcendental Explosion (Irvine,
CA: Harvest House Publishers, republished by Zola Levitt Ministries,
Dallas, TX, 1991).
3 Maureen Murdock,
"Meditation with Young Children," The Journal of Transpersonal
Psychology, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 35-36.
4 Ibid., p. 30.
5 Ibid., p. 40.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid., p. 21.
8 Rozman, p. 15.
9 Ibid., pp. 129-37.
10 David and Sharon Sneed,
The Hidden Agenda: A Critical View of Alternative Medical Therapies
(Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1991), p. 136.
11 Rozman, p. 137.
12 Ibid.
13 Murdock, p. 38.
