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BY GAYLA CAWLEY
LYNN — The World Inner Peace Day will be celebrated on March 21, with a major part of the initiative to bring meditation to schools.
“We can’t have world peace until we have peace within,” said Michelle Simons, who teaches Sahaja Yoga Meditation in Salem and works for Project Cope, an affiliate of Bridgewell.
To find that inner peace, Simons and others have taught the Sahaja meditation method to more than 50,000 students in about 50 countries since the first World Inner Peace Day (WIPD) was launched in 2013. The practice has been taught worldwide since its founding in 1970 by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Simons said.
Classes are always free, mainly because a core philosophy of the practice is that peace and balance is a birthright and cannot be sold, she said.
Classes are offered in Boston on Wednesdays from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Boston Public Library, South End Branch; in Salem on Saturdays from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at Beverly Cooperative Bank Community Room, 87 Lafayette St.; and in Bedford on Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. at Fitch Room, The Bedford Center, 12 Mudge Way.
Sudeep Hegde, a Sahaja meditation expert, said the motivation for bringing WIPD to the schools was to raise public awareness, and to see if Lynn Public Schools were interested.
Hegde said the meditation hasn’t reached Boston schools yet. He said the Hub’s schools will be approached in the coming months.
Simons said she plans to offer the meditation at Project Cope, an outpatient substance abuse treatment center in Lynn.
She started doing the meditation over a year ago after discovering it online. Up until last year, she said she was experiencing anxiety and stress. Now over the age of 40, she knew that she wanted to feel free.
“I didn’t want to feel that I was bound my own mind and anxieties,” Simons said. “I knew meditation was the answer. I just didn’t know where to look.”
After learning the method, Simons said she began teaching. As someone who works with people who have substance abuse and mental health issues, she has seen the effects of meditation on people struggling with the disorders. She said she has heard people with schizophrenia say meditation has freed them from hearing voices for the first time in their lives.
Scientific studies have shown that Sahaja meditation has also resulted in reduced asthma, better managed epilepsy, improved attention and focus in children suffering from attention deficit disorder, alleviated depression, enhanced emotional resilience, and better results in overcoming addiction to alcohol and drugs, according to Simons.
Gayla Cawley can be reached at gcawley@itemlive.com. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley