Yoga for Kids: Filmmaker Funds Meditation in Schools

Under the dazzling lights of Radio City Music Hall’s famous stage, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr got together with Ben Harper, Moby, Eddie Vedder, Jim James, Sheryl Crow and more-for one goal, to give kids around the world the opportunity to learn to meditate.

Meditation is one aspect of the age-old tradition of yoga, which involves further settling of the mind and body. Yoga has a plethora of health benefits, and so does its sister technique, meditation. A regular meditation practice reduces stress, and promotes healthy mind/ body functioning. With today’s stress levels and unprecedented health degradation and violence in inner city schools-some feel that kids need stress management as much as do adults.

World renowned, two time academy award nominated filmmaker and director, David Lynch is one such person. Inspired by his own experiences practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM) for 35+ years, Lynch is convinced that meditation is a way to not just reduce the stress levels among kids in inner city schools, but to also improve creativity, brain functioning, and academic performance.

In 2005 established Lynch established a foundation dedicated to providing students with bringing the benefits of the ancient science of yoga and meditation to kids around the world by offering grants for kids to learn the TM technique. Research on Transcendental has shown that it is effective in reducing ADHD, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and learning disorders, and also in improving overall health and well-being.

To raise money to bring this natural technique of stress reduction to kids around the world, Lynch managed to do what no one has done before: Bring Beatles members McCartney and Starr together for a giant benefit concert. And so the Change Begins Within Concert was created.

Nearly four decades ago the Beatles, Donovan, Paul Horn, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys traveled to India to study Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The concert that took place in Radio City Music Hall was a sort of reunion of “musicians for meditation,” brought together by the desire to help kids through the ancient science of yoga and meditation. Tickets, of course, sold out within 6 seconds on Ticketmaster. Rarely has

The concert rocked Radio City and shed a little bit of awareness on an issue that is much overlooked. Today’s children are unnecessarily stressed-there’s violence in schools, stress-related diseases are soaring, substance abuse and depression are high and many children never graduate from high school because of stress-related conditions. Yoga and meditation-offering a simple, natural, ancient technique with no harsh or negative side effects, has the potential to make a positive difference, and a positive change from within.