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Last week's concert in NYC which reunited Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney  has once again brought attention to Transcendental Meditation.  It's quite historic for the two surviving Beatles to perform together, and the concert brings back images of the Foursome's days in India so many decades ago.

The purpose of the event - organized by David Lynch's Foundation and the TM Foundation - for the US Committee for Stress Free Schools - aims to give the gift of meditation to as many children as possible.  

As someone who learned TM when I was 9 years old, and spent most of my youth in the TM Movement, I have been reading about the event and the goals of the Foundation with interest.  It fascinates me that the legacy of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who faced adulation and controversy in his life, continues to attract such highly influential people from around the world.  Of course, my father was one of Maharishi's inner circle, and I spent hundreds of hours in his presence, so understand the spell binding nature of what it was like to be around him.  

It comforts me that the legacy of Maharishi will continue to be realized through the wonderful tool that is meditation. Personally, I am not comfortable with a movement around meditation. Rather, I think the practice of meditation itself, whether TM, Primordial Sound Meditation, breathing, yoga, or mindfulness, is the most important.

For me as a child, meditation gave me a sense of who I really was.  The experiential silence of meditation f gave me a sense of security, because I had the tool to silence my thoughts and process all the busyness of my life (particularly in my teen age years) in a way where I felt I was in control.  

It helped me feel connected to something bigger, but also physically made me feel more rested, clear and energetic.  With advanced techniques, I felt a sense of power that, again, could only come from experientially knowing myself and my capabilities.  

I was always irregular in my meditation practice - sometimes meditating twice a day, other times going for months without doing it.  I always appreciate that my parents gave me the tool of meditation, but then let me practice it when and if I wanted.  Because they meditated, and it made them happier and more relaxed in their own lives, I meditated more regularly.

My daughters both learned meditation from my father when they were about 4 years old.  They love the idea that they know how to meditate, even if they dont do it all the time.  And now, when we need a Time Out, we actually take a Time In.  Meditation helps them relax and focus, but also gives them a connection to a sense of spirit that I could never explain to them.  

So, I applaud the resurgence of the conversation around meditation and children.  I hope it will be embraced as a tool to help humanity, and not an effort propagated by a movement.  Hopefully, an openness about the variety of tools that can help our children (and ourselves) will be the model moving forward.

Here are some other Intent articles you may find interesting about Meditation:

When is the Right Time to Teach Children Meditation? Deepak Chopra

Benefits of Meditation, Dr. David Simon

A Yoga Demo for Warmer Days, Rebecca Pacheco

Awakening our Children, Mick Quinn

20 Meditation Tips for Beginners, Ray Baskerville

Meditation: Connect with Your Inner Expert, Roger Gabriel

Should I Practice Meditation or Kaballah? Deepak Chopra

A Lifetime of Happiness & Focus Enhancer: Vipassana Meditation, Aaron Ross

Meditation Works Wonders on College Students, Elevated Existence

Treasures of our Past: Inner Child Meditation, Daily Om

Yoga at Ground Zero, Louisiana, David Romanelli

Mallika Chopra blogs regularly at Intent.com

by Lissa Coffey from Intent.com

There is an ancient Indian principle that says if you want to check if your rice is ready, then you just test a few grains. The grains are representative of the status of the entire pot of rice.

So, if we want to check on the status of our society, we can look at a few families, as representative of society as a whole. Ayurveda says that we are born with a peaceful and loving mind. When we are raised in an affectionate and nurturing home, then we can bring that love and peace with us out into society and help the world merely by being ourselves.

In our fast-paced culture we sometimes forget about how important it is to come together as a family. Our homes might have a family room, but how often do we use it? Everyone has his own computer, TV, cell phone, and schedule, and we're going in different directions all the time.

We need to remember to connect. Eating a meal together daily gives us food for our souls as well as our bodies. Serving together by helping our communities sets a great example for our children, and feels good, too. Support each other, love each other, appreciate each other. Being an integral part of a healthy family helps us to function more efficiently on five levels: body, mind, senses, emotions, and spirit.

This is from today's "What's Your Dosha" newsletter. You can subscribe and receive the newsletter for free every Tuesday by going to: www.whatsyourdosha.com While you're there take the free quiz to find your dosha!

My daughter, Tara, is in first grade and is in Brownies, the precursor to Girl Scouts. I have to admit I was very wary of her joining what I thought was a conservative, all American, clan of secret codes and rules. Really not my thing. That said, its part of the tradition at her school and so I basically went along with it because all the other girls in her class were part of the clan.

The last week has been Girl Scout Cookie week. Wow, what an experience!

Over the last week, Tara has been out selling cookies to our friends, co-workers, and neighbors. Remember Thin Mints, Samoa's and those peanut butter cookies? Its quite remarkable to see the impression that Girl Scout Cookies have on the culture in America when you go out to sell them.

The sales process is fascinating to watch. I have learned so much about people as they interact with my toothless, eager and innocent seven year old daughter.

Some are gracious and get a box, others just ignore the doorbell when they see us outside or bark that they already bought them, others have a nostalgia about when they were young and were part of the clan and order a lot to feed the memories.

And, then the insights into my fellow moms personalities - those that are out there hitting the pavement with the girls, those who just want to their daughter to sell a few and get it over with, and those that just take the list to their office. Funny how the mom's personalities and world views come out in this effort!

As for me, we did what we could do, and Tara has made us all damn proud. She's knocked on doors and spoke to people in our offices confidently about her offering. She clearly stated her favorite cookies - Thin Mints - and thanked people graciously for ordering them. She's proud of her success.

So perhaps I judged Girl Scouts too early. There is no question my daughter has enjoyed the process and feels good about herself. And once I get over my own resistance to pledges and obeying the law bit, the sentiment of the Girl Scout Law is definitely something to aspire to...

I will do my best to be
Honest and fair,
Friendly and helpful,
Considerate and caring,
Courageous and strong, and
Responsible for what I say and do,
And to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.

I have to admit - its makes for a great intent.

Mallika Chopra blogs regularly at Intent.com

Not a day goes by that someone I encounter doesn't stop and ask me - "wait, your dad is DEEPAK CHOPRA?! Oh my God, what was it like to grow up with him as a father?!"

I try to be as candid as I can, sugarcoating the fact that he was a physically abusive, self-obsessed, substance abusing a-hole...

Gotcha.

But seriously, the first part is true. Most people assume that mine and my sister's childhood was spent in a celestial monastery somewhere where we perfected the seven spiritual laws of success, meditated, did yoga and lived la vida vegan 24/7.

Not quite.

The prequel: My father was a nicotine addicted medical school grad when he and his newlywed (my mom) arrived in the US right in the middle of the Vietnam War. Hard up for physicians, a New Jersey hospital that served the greater Italian mob population in the area offered my father a position and he quickly took it.

A year or so later, my mom was pregnant with my older sister Mallika. With no health insurance, it was cheaper to send my mom back to India where she could have the baby while my dad kept working the midnight ER shift trying to earn his keep. Fast forward about four years and yours truly was conceived and arrived in the otherwise not-so-notable mid-seventies.

More fast-forward: Deepak worked hard, migrating from Jersey to Boston, cracking the hallowed Boston medical establishment and soon staking his claim with fancy titles like "Chief of Staff" and "Professor."

But a funny thing happened; dad realized he hated his life. And Junior (that would be me) was old enough to see it. Deepak smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. He often boozed until he passed out for the night. He called himself a legalized drug pusher that "treated diseases, not people," and envisioned himself earning just enough money to fill two college funds before he himself checked out with the great American stress-induced affliction of heart disease.

So much for the celestial monastery...

I remember that it happened just as I hit my teenage years. My dad woke up.

That's not some sort of evangelical metaphor. I mean it literally. He says he "woke up" in his car outside a meditation center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He says he can't remember if he had passed out from working too much or drinking too much (sure...) but remembers thinking to himself how ironic it was that he had lived forty years, and traveled half way across the planet, to have his curiosity peaked by a discipline (meditation) that his own mother had practiced almost every day of her life.

And so he - and subsequently my mother - learned to meditate. And like everything else in my father's life that he liked to do, he soon became an addict. He quit the smokes and the booze cold turkey and took up meditation hardcore. He also happened to make for the perfect profile for a meditation movement looking to shed its hippy brand and go mainstream. Within a few short years, the guru once made famous for inspiring the Beatles, made it clear that he wanted Deepak to be his heir.

Only Deepak wasn't interested and abdicated the throne. Mind you, by then, I was in highscool, more interested in the Red Sox, Celtics, and skinemax than worrying about my father's New Age political maneuvers. I didn't really notice that at that point, he was a guy stuck between two worlds, but no longer with much of an anchor in either one.

Then Oprah. To this day, people always say they love seeing my father on Oprah. But he was only on once - in 1993. Whatever. Overnight his book (did I skip that part? He had started writing books on health a few years earlier) hit the bestsellers list and he was a media darling. All of a sudden, he was the little snake charmer that could. Pre-politically correct days, they actually called him that!

Super-fast forward through the last 15 years or so during which he went from fringe medicine man to New Age charlatan to maverick mind ruminating on all things relevant, from the root causes of the Kashmir conflict to cancer, from solutions for tabloid romances to terrorism.

I've had a front row seat to it all. Through various times, I've enjoyed it, endured it, and exploited it with varying results.

So if you really want to know what it's been like to grow up with Deepak as my father, I guess the word to describe it would be: "different."

This blog was orginially published on MTV iggy thoughts

http://www.intent.com/node/90160

Thanksgiving in our household had its own spicy twist.

As Indians, who had emigrated to the United States, the whole concept of turkeys, pilgrims, football, apple pie, and Native Americans with feathers in their hair seemed quite foreign to my parents.

But over time, the day began to hold a lot of meaning and significance. It represented a time to recognize all that they could be grateful for - health, family, success, and happiness. My parents and many of our relatives welcomed family members who would come to Boston from around the country for the gathering. A huge feast was planned for the day, including masala turkey, spicy Indian vegetable filling, and traditional Indian potatoes on the side. Desert was a combination of apple pies, brownies, and traditional Indian desert. Bollywood music played in the background, while my brother and other cousins dragged our elders to the television and tried to explain the game of football to them. After genuinely trying to understand the game for a few minutes, the adults would quickly lose interest and drift outside to play cricket.

My memories of Thanksgiving mark in an important lesson in how I want to celebrate holidays with my children. We live in a multicultural society where we marry people of other cultures, from different backgrounds, with different ideologies and religious beliefs. Our holidays and customs build the foundation for how we identify ourselves and who we are connected. While Sumant (my husband) identifies himself as an Indian, I identify myself as Indian American. How will my children identify themselves? Is there a need for them to identify themselves in a mutlicultural society?

I have struggeld with whether or not to get a Christmas tree. We are not Christian, so why would we celebrate the holiday? (When we were young, my parents would buy us one gift each, and hang up a stocking by the fireplace. Christmas was not about gifts, but it became a day we learned about giving.) At the same time, I do not want my young children to feel excluded from the dominant society. I want them to know the Indian festivals like Diwali (the festival of light that marks the New Year) and Hole (the festival of color). But I also want them to understand the traditions and holidays of their friends - from Ramadan to Id to Hanukah and the Chinese Moon Festival.

In a world of so much color and flavor, perhaps the answer is to create a calendar of holidays that we celebrate throughout the year. This calendar is full of rich traditions, color, stories, and most of all connections - bonds with your heritage, world, self and the friends and families you love.

(This is an excerpt from my book, 100 Promises to My Baby.)

Visit www.intent.com to read more from Mallika Chopra and other prominent voices.

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