Every other day there seems to be a story on meditation and yoga in the United States. Meditation has been found in scientific experiments to reduce hypertension as well as even alter the brain structure. Now Yoga alongwith some mantra meditation is used to cure anger of juveniles in a detention center.
“I got hooked on it and now I go every Friday,” the darkskinned girl says. “I didn’t really know you could find such a calm place in your body. It’s like you go off somewhere else; it’s like I’m not even in my body, like you go floating off the ground up in the sky. It’s really awesome.”
“(Gina) was really, really ADD at first,” Lord says, referring to attention-deficit disorder. “She could not even stop talking in the middle of a pose. She was incapable of closing her mouth, and now she is quiet in class. That’s a huge, huge change.”
After nearly an hour of poses, Lord directs the girls onto their backs for the “corpse” pose. She turns off the lights, hands out blue washcloths for the girls to cover their eyes and starts a new tape of Indian music. As the girls lie silently, muscles unclenched and hands open, a woman on the tape lightly chants the mantra, Om namah Shivaya (“I honor my higher self”). Some of the girls move their lips along with the words.
“Don’t pay attention to any sounds,” Lord purrs. “Focus on the mantra. If a thought comes into your mind, just pretend it’s a little butterfly floating across the blue sky of your mind. . . . Repeat this mantra whenever you need it. The mantra is a tool.” [Yoga Gives Young Offenders Tools Against Trouble]
