See Why & How This School Teaches Kids To See With Their Eyes Closed

March 2nd, 2016

Awake Goy

Many claim that we are all born with a natural intuitive ability to perceive beyond our known senses, and this notion is well established in the teachings of various ancient texts. While that of course does not alone make something true, we now also have a wealth of scientific data which confirms this ability.

According to The Art of Living, which is an educational and humanitarian movement engaged in stress-management and service initiatives, these natural intuitive abilities are more visible and ‘alive’ in children “whose minds are still fresh, less obsessive and more in tune with nature.”

The Art of Living process attempts to help children tap into the intuitive abilities of the mind, which, according to the movement, are “demonstrated by them seeing colours, reading text and identifying pictures with eyes closed.” They believe that deep and enigmatic faculties are present in a latent form in every child. To make these faculties blossom and become more firmly established, the mind needs proper nurturing and nourishment. That’s where the Intuition process offered by The Art of Living comes in.

The program helps children aged 8 to 18 years:

Improve intuition
Enhance sensory abilities
Improve awareness and foresight
Increase confidence
Remove the fear of the unknown
Increase creativity and intelligence

They do so through various brain activation techniques, along with meditation and relaxation. The duration of the course is only 2 days, with class time lasting 2.5 hours each day.

The founder of the program is Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar; he’s a humanitarian leader and an ambassador for peace, having been bestowed the highest civilian honours in places like Colombia, Mongolia, and Paraguay. He is also the Chancellor of Sri Sri University and the Chairman of the Quality Control of India Yoga Certification Committee. You can learn more about his background here.

Why This Is So Great & Much Needed

Emotional and intuitive development teachings are currently lacking in mainstream education systems. This is a huge problem, and may very well help to explain why so many people have trouble dealing with and expressing their emotions well into adulthood. Children go through school never talking about their emotions or learning how to listen to their intuitive voice.

Constantly listening to someone else give instruction, telling them what to do and how to think, children learn to defer higher order thinking to perceived authority figures and do not learn how to think for themselves. They then fail to recognize their own desires. This is why programs like this one are so great — they address important and often-neglected skills during critical stages in a child’s development.

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The human psyche needs stimulation in various areas that mainstream educational institutions have yet to provide, which is, again, why programs like these are wonderful and greatly needed. It is so crucial for children to develop a healthy respect for themselves and for others, and our school systems are currently failing in this regard.

Some of the techniques taught to the children are simple. Take breathing, for example: through breathing properly a child can learn how to overcome negative emotions such as frustration, jealousy, nervousness, and fear. Where else would a child learn to overcome these emotions that are, most likely, brought up in their everyday lives, especially at school? I personally believe that behavioural problems within the classroom can be directly attributed to a lack of stress management tools.

By engaging in these programs at an early age, a child can learn human values and self discipline. They can develop a healthy, well-rounded personality and understand how to effectively deal with the realities of relationships and their day-to-day lives: sports, exams, school, work, etc, all become much easier to handle. Perhaps most importantly, they can learn to love themselves.

Dr. Kelly M. Flanagan, a licensed clinical psychologist, explains just how important it is for us to learn to recognize our desires and listen to our inner voice in an article arguing for the value of saying “no”:

When we can’t say “No,” we become a sponge for the feelings of everyone around us and we eventually become saturated by the needs of everyone else while our own hearts wilt and die. We begin to live our lives according to the forceful should of others, rather than the whispered, passionate want of our own hearts. We let everyone else tell us what story to live and we cease to be the author of our own lives. We lose our voice — we lose the desire planted in our souls and the very unique way in which we might live out that desire in the world. We get used by the world instead of being useful in the world. (source)

In learning to listen to their own hearts, children also learn how to assert themselves. They learn to say “no” to things which do not resonate with them, and, by extension, how to say “yes” to things which do. I can’t think of a better gift we could offer them.

You can find out more more about this specific program by visiting their website here.

Below is a video we made on the initiative for our Facebook page.