Meditation, Your Children, and You

Some time ago, I posted that I intended to write on the potential of meditation to help the behavior of children, including in regard to adolescent rebellion.

I am only expressing this from my personal opinions, reasonings, and experience.

I have had numerous experiences with meditation in the past. In all of the times when I have successfully practiced meditation, it has helped me in numerous ways: it has calmed me; it has helped me to think with greater clarity; it has helped me to sleep better and to need less sleep. More recently, I believe it has helped me in learning, in the retention and understanding of information I have studied.

Recently, I read through a book named 'Jose Silva's Everyday ESP.' Don't get too stuck on the title. While it discusses elements of ESP, and to a great degree intuition, it has exceptional meditation exercises, and if for nothing else but that I highly recommend the book, or similar materials from Silva International ( www.silvamethod.com ). You don't need to spend hours struggling to meditate, it is not that difficult. The practice sessions may take you some time, 15-30 minutes at a time, or so. As you practice it will come easier, and I can not list all of the benefits.

The book and some other Silva materials also explain some of the workings of meditation, such as physiological effects, namely on brainwave frequency. They state that meditation encourages the brain to act at a slower but more stable brainwave frequency, called 'alpha', similar to that which is common in children aged 7-14, and also notes that these frequencies are associated with better creativity and intuition. The book also states that ~90% of people, from the age of 15 on, begin to 'naturally' think at a higher but less stable brainwave frequency called 'beta', which is associated with physical activity. The exact ages vary from person to person, of course.

The Silva methods are claimed to be able to help children escape getting 'stuck' thinking at beta frequencies and help them to continue thinking at the more productive alpha frequencies. They also claim to help adulted get 'unstuck' and to regain the ability to think and function at alpha. Silva International has also done and funded a lot of research on these methods, and from my own experience, I agree with their claims at least as far as creativity and intuition go.

When I read that the idea of beta brainwaves being associated with physical activity, it reminded me of a time when I first became diabetic and was reading books on diabetes. One described the problem that young children have trouble measuring out their insulin dosages because they have not yet developed fine motor control, something that tends to develop roughly around their teens. Perhaps a connection to beta brainwave development?

I ask you to keep an open mind as I suggest an idea. If alpha brainwaves of pre-adolescent children give a degree of intuition, then perhaps it gives them a 'sense' of how to communicate with people around them. If ~90% of children lose the ability to operate at these brainwave levels, then they would lose this intuition. Then, to these children, it would appear to them that people aren't paying any mind to them, that people aren't trying to communicate with them anymore.

If this is true, then the problem with this perception is that other people have not changed - the children have changed. They have changed, and perhaps they did not need to, perhaps they changed only because noone showed them how to keep what they had while they had it. I believe this to be a major contributing factor to the rebellious attitudes associated with adolescence.

After I came to this suspicion, I decided to see what I could find connecting meditation and adolescent rebellion. I didn't find anything directly on the issue, however I did find a study that Silva had done on Silva Method's affects on behavioral problems in children: the results of that showed that Silva Method was beneficial.

Meditation is easy. I do not believe that it is able to hurt anyone, though my opinion is not a professional one. The benefits that I have experienced, and that I suspect others would also, are surprisin, and likely better than many activities you could engage in. Meditation also takes less time than you may think, and it gets even easier with time. It doesn't take a lot of time, and you can decide how much time to spend on it. Even professional opinions show that, if nothing else, meditation helps in stress management and can help with insomnia and hypertension (high blood pressure). It doesn't require pills, chanting mantras, or saying 'aummmm.' For your happiness, for your peace of mind, for your health, I ask you to consider it.

If you will not for yourself and you have children, then I ask you to at least look into it for their benefit.

Disclaimer: I have no personal and no professional affiliations with Silva International.

The Unbearable Cost of Maintaining Taboos

Good day, everyone. It's been quite some time since I've written in this forum, and for that I apologize. I have had thoughts but I did not well keep them. I have been busy with many things but, tonight, I find that there are some things which move me that I must write.

The things that I will attempt to write upon in the coming hours, days, or weeks, follow:

1) taboos, and how they perpetuate destructive behavior;

2) whether or not to support a religious-appearing body that seeks financial contributions;

3) meditation and its potential to aid in children to mitigate or avoid the tendency toward adolescent rebellion and poor behavior.

First, taboos. What is a taboo? The word taboo refers to something excluded from use or mention. This can include all sorts of things: cannibalism; recreational drug use; sex; the failure of the FDA to regulate dangerous drugs resulting in countless of unnecessary deaths; the disregard of our national well-being by those we call our public servants; or, for an extremely minor example, even something such as having your elbows on the table at a meal.

If you are completely satisfied with every aspect of your life, of those people around you, and all you know of in your world, you can stop reading now. Why waste your time on seeking improvement if all is well and nothing can be made better?

If you are not satisfied, then let us look at why. Taboos are things generally not spoken of and that can reflect, depending on their severity, issues that need to be addressed and, perhaps more importantly, that our youth may need to be taught about. The last of the examples may seem of little import, but who wants their 15-year-old daughter to get drunk or high on drugs and have sex with three men that she barely knows, without even being reasonably aware of what goes on; potentially exposing herself to life-threatening STDs such as AIDS or Hepatitis, in addition to the likelihood of getting pregnant and not knowing who the father is? Perhaps worse, who wants such a child of theirs to be consenting to it?

Addictions are another, private, example. If I were an alcoholic, I would have an addiction to alcohol. I would desire to drink it, and drink it in excess. I would keep going back to it despite it incurring destructive effects upon my health, well-being, or lifestyle. How would I perpetuate it? By denying that there was a problem. I would be making the idea of alcoholism a taboo for me. I wouldn't discuss alcoholism, mention it, and I would keep out of my mind any association with the idea. What is this, if not a taboo?

Those of us in the USA, who wants our nation to be $12 trillion in debt and increasing so much by the year that there is no way to ever climb out, which is what our public servants have been and continue to be condemning our nation to? Those of you in other nations, you might not have those specific numbers as the problem but, at least in most places, the problem is still there. This can only lead to insolvency, as in the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe. Is that what we want for ourselves, for our children?

The reason that these problems happen, that we see them from day to day, is because of taboos. It is the same reason that we have gone to wars on foreign soil when popular opinion is not supportive, sometimes when the popular opinion is clearly in disagreement. It is why when someone in authority, a politician on TV or a preacher in a pulpit, says something that we disagree with, something that we, in our hearts, find important, we stifle our opinions. It would be a taboo to disagree with our leaders, and others might condemn us for that - we fear this, so we accept the bondage of the less righteous and honorable path.

It is why, historically, we so easily accepted the official lines for events leading to the USA's entry into World War I and II, lies about the RMS Lusitania and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (not that these events did not happen - for they did - but the lies were that we had no fault in them, that we did not encourage these tragedies).

It is part of why when our leaders say 'let's give $XXX billion to ____' (fill in the blank; over the past year, there's been no shortage of examples), we feel disgust, perhaps say little, and ultimately do nothing.

We exhibit desperation for approval in our divided society and have resigned ourselves to the idea that this is an acceptable and reasonable way to live our lives. It is why we, for so long, remain in denial about these and so many other lies. Meanwhile, all spins out of control.

Our children, what of them? Some decide that certain things we should not discuss with them, so as to prevent them from being exposed to those things. We do not find God to be very much in agreement with this, though. In the garden in Eden, God warns of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that it leads to death; out of doubt for God's honesty and out of our own curiosity, we take and eat, and gorge ourselves on death. God tells us what will happen, because he wants us to be able to see the problems before we get to them, so that we may never have to suffer them.

We seem to disagree with that idea. We think that we can shelter our children from the realities of sin and deception and immorality and death; despite the fact that our societies, our world, is practically submerged in this. Why do we so often not warn them? I suspect it is similar to our response in the garden - we're ashamed, so we hide in our shame. We went down some paths that we aren't proud of, so we hide these things, rather than revealing our experiences to our children. We don't protect our children this way, we attempt to protect ourselves at their expense.

Similarly, we're ashamed that we don't have the answers for dealing with problems in our neighborhoods, our cities, our nations. Out of shame, we hide. What we should be doing is seeking out the better way, finding the answers, and making sure that something is done - and not just some thing, but the RIGHT thing.

We become what we focus our attention on. If we focus our attention on shame and protect it, we will become shameful and remain ashamed. And I say that it is at least in part for this cause that we fear death, that we feel that we 'do not make the cut', that if there is an afterlife that we are not good enough to have any good thing in the hereafter.

If we focus our attention on what is right and good and pure, on the ideal, and protect that, we will become more like this; we will not be ashamed any longer, and our children will learn this from us rather than shame. Then and only then can we live with and leave behind something that we can be proud of.

Don't be ashamed to reveal our mistakes to your children, unless you would rather they make the same errors that you did. Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." As children begin with little of their own past, they must make all of the mistakes anew to learn from them if we fail to teach them of our pasts.

Don't be ashamed to make mistakes in the sight of others, for anyone who has succeeded at any thing knows that only through the failures encountered during practice, during attempts, has a person ever been prepared for any success. In this, failure can be a sign of progress, as long as you would learn and improve, and why should anyone be ashamed of improvement?

13-Year-Old Helping Feed Children in Need

Greetings, all.

When visiting a church this past Sunday, I was made aware of a ministry effort that is being spearheaded by certain young man named Corey Warner (and I'm serious about young - 13 years old!), aimed at helping to feed 3500 needy children in the Central Florida area a Thanksgiving dinner. This has impressed me so greatly that I just had to post about it, the best way that I believe I can help at this time. His website is at http://coreywarnerchildabuse.com/ .

I don't know how many people are visiting my blog here, let alone how many might feel encouraged to support the effort - but even if you DON'T feel compelled to help with a donation, please, pass on the information to a friend, or anyone else you might know. Hopefully, he will get all of the support he needs to accomplish what he's trying to do. No matter what happens with regards to his current effort, I believe that people hearing about this will be inspired to make their own efforts of ministry and charity.


I don't like to make posts without having some message, but I'll try to keep it related - that of the 'storehouse'. You could also call the premise that of ministry, or of service.

Personally, I believe that the idea behind the 'storehouse' is essentially the same as of God's purpose for the tithe, and some other Biblical ordinances and examples - I would refer you to verses Deuteronomy 14:22-29; a few places in Deuteronomy 16 (circa vss. 11, 14; commanding to rejoice, in the feasts, with 'the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow'); Deuteronomy 24:17-22 and 26:10-13 (giving representation to and leaving a portion of what is grown 'for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow'); Malachi 3:10; Acts 6:1-4; and there are other references similar.

These are about providing for the needs and interests of the needy (strangers, fatherless e.g. orphans generally though I personally believe it has broader application, and widows, and also, in a sense, the Levites, as they received no inheritance) and of those who would be acting in the office to tend to those needs (again, the Levites e.g. ministers). While these needs include basic physical necessities (such as food and raiment e.g. clothing) I do not believe that these needs are limited to those, but also include the spiritual (the Gospel) and possibly as well even intellectual/educational or skillful (languages, trade-skills, etc.).

I do suspect that in many cases in Christian churches that this aspect has been marginalized; and, in doing so, the church collectively misses out on opportunities to give back to their communities and, through so doing, misses out on opportunities to show the light of God's will and mercy that would help attract people, even and perhaps especially nearby people, to Him and hence to the church. In some cases, this could be tied to a lack of the generosity or even the means of the congregation but more often I expect it is due to the churches not being sufficiently led by their leaders to consider this kind of local ministry important.

I know that these appear to be difficult financial times but do realize that this means that the needs for such ministry efforts are even greater now than they otherwise might be. Further, sometimes help can be in a form other than money. So, in closing, I'd like to suggest we all consider a few questions. 'Am I helping out my neighbors, people I don't know, the needy, or my community as much as I believe I should be? Is my church?' If you believe in either case that more needs to be done, then it's up to you to take the next step towards that goal. If there's anything more that you could be doing that you feel that you should be, don't lie to yourself and convince yourself that you can't. Remember the words of Corey Warner: 'I am only 13 years old and if I can help, than so can you!'