“Childhood is the best of all periods in life, and it never returns. Children are the most beautiful flowers; they can make our society bloom. Without children, no nation can survive. We need the help of children who have been loved, well cared for, and wisely educated, if we really want to improve society.
There is no better foundation for a happy life than a happy childhood”  –  Swami Rama

When I stop and think about the reason I started to share the practice of yoga with children and adolescents, I feel Swami Rama’s words resonate within me and it comes to my mind the light in Swami Veda’s eyes when, in La Verna in June 2012, he announced the Children Retreat, at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama Ashram, inviting the entire Ahymsin family to participate.
In the same way, it arises spontaneously the memory of the experience I made in 2014 during the Children Retreat at the Ashram, again at the presence of our beloved Swami Veda. The image of Swami Veda with children is like a lighthouse that illuminates and guides the path: we don’t teach what we know, but we share what we are.

Swami Rama and Swami Veda Bharati have always encouraged children and adolescents to approach yoga from an early age, future generations in which it is essential to focus, “planting” in them some small seeds that may, with time and care, grow and blossom.
Sharing these teachings, the Himalayan Yoga Institute of Florence has been participating for many years in yoga projects in primary and secondary schools, in collaboration with the Municipality of Florence and the municipalities of other cities.
One of the most known projects is “Tuttinsieme per l’integrazione” of the Municipality of Florence, dedicated to classes where there are kids and adolescents with special needs.

It is difficult to share, through words, the experience lived during the years within this path: the eyes and the joy of kids and adoloscents, with and without special needs, in finally feeling accepted and part of a group without perceiving differences in comparison to their companions, cannot be told, but can only be imagined! And this allows us to feel the true strength and power of yoga, a tool for overcoming all those barriers that our minds often create: a ‘universal language’ that everyone can understand and that allows us to get in touch with others, understanding that we are all unique and unrepeatable.

Through simple lessons based on the eight steps of ashtanga yoga, where students experience an activity that integrates body-breath-mind, the depth of the teachings of the Himalayan Tradition is expressed in all its fullness and colours.
Yoga educates, transforms, creates unity, develops self-confidence, awareness and self-discipline; facilitates intercultural understanding, individual and collective peace; enables the acceptance of all forms of diversity; develops a sense of belonging to a group; encourages inclusion and active participation of children and adolescents with special needs; proposes relationships models, in the class and in the society, based on ethical principles of non-violence, respect and tolerance; develops self-esteem, strengthens talents, potential and qualities and, finally, creates joy.

The experience of practicing yoga with children/adolescents is a wonderful ‘mirror’, because they have so much to teach to adults and they invite us to deeply reflect on the quality of the future we would like to offer them. At the same time, it is a great responsibility: the delicate age and the emotional fragility, children and adolescents experience, make us feel how these young generations are increasingly searching for values and reference points that may give them an anchor. The competitive society we live in and the pandemic have increased feelings of unease, anxiety and stress in the younger generations. We strongly feel the importance of sharing and transmitting yoga as a tool to offer children and adolescents the opportunity to assimilate a practice that may accompany and support them in their growth, to build a personal philosophy of life.

And again, the remembrance of Swami Veda appears, like a lighthouse that illuminates and guides us: we don’t teach what we know, but we share what we are.

“Let peace prevail in the minds of all those who have been educated in the art of becoming free from conflict.”  –  Swami Veda

In loving gratitude,
Ilaria