The history of working with children in the City of Togliatti, Russia, starts in 1993. That year Shri Mataji blessed the creation of a school and a kindergarten in Togliatti. Inspired by it, Sahaja Yogis established a Sahaja Yoga School for children under a state secondary school. In a year, Shri Mataji visited it. She was very happy. At the end of 1996, the first group of a Sahaja Yoga kindergarten started its work. It consisted of six Togliatti children, sons and daughters of Sahaja Yogis. In several years the school happened to close for some time but in 2009 it will resume working.

Many things have changed since 1993. From year to year our understanding of how everything should be was changing. And now, Togliatti Sahaja Yoga kindergarten “Cool Breeze” has got the status of an All-Russian Sahaja Yoga Kindergarten. Children from different corners of Russia come there.

Children get pre-school education at the specially organized lessons. We took the state program as the basis of education and added different creative ideas and experience of teachers-Sahaja Yogis to it. Thus, the children will be able to continue their education at school in the future. And of course, one of the directions of our work is to give the children Sahaja knowledge, teach them to meditate and enjoy communication with each other.

Since the last academic year, we have been using subject weeks in the Kindergarten. Each week is devoted to some aspect of the subtle system. The week starts with a Sahaja lesson at which the children get theoretical knowledge. On Tuesday, we offer a Puja where the children get vibrational experience. Then, during the week, the children participate in the preparation for the Saturday event which is meant for strengthening the received knowledge. It can be a music program, theatricalized games in which the kids have the roles of the Deities and perform different situations from Their life. Very often these are the stories told us by Shri Mataji in Her talks. There are also games-travels with tasks and questions, communication with nature when we try to teach the children not only to watch it but also to feel it. The children take part in all the activities with much pleasure.

One more important aspect of the children’s life in the Kindergarten is meditation. Much attention is given to cleaning and meditation itself. We try to make meditations interesting. At morning meditations we try to fill our hearts with joy. For this, we use singing of Indian bhajans and Russian songs devoted to Shri Mataji, Pujas, and music programs. All this is concluded with a meditation in silence. The children learn to feel the vibrations and enjoy them.

At the evening meditations much attention is given to cleaning of our subtle body. Each day the children meditate making a footsoaking, use different cleaning techniques: lemons, airing, to the tape of “Mother’s Breathing”, etc. The method of cleaning is chosen according to the energy state of the children’s collective. The adult workers of the Kindergarten balance themselves at the daily collective cleanings and meditations.

This year, a Sahaja doctor has started working in the Kindergarten who helps to maintain the children’s balance. Every day, the doctor works with the children cleaning them individually and developing their vibrational awareness.

One more new thing of this year is music therapy for the kids. The children perceive the depth of Indian classic music, learn to feel it. They also study to sing bhajans.

This year we have started to pay more attention to physical body by means of physical and health-improving activities. It has led to good results by the end of the year. The backbone of many children has become more flexible and the muscles of the back – of greater endurance. And it is very important during meditation. The children for who it had been difficult to sit at the meditation upright easily coped with it at the end of the year.

For the last two years the kindergarten has been working according to terms (the children stay in the kindergarten for 3 months then have a break and then come to the kindergarten for another three months). And it gave us an opportunity to feel Shri Mataji’s vision of children’s upbringing in the collective of a Sahaja kindergarten: the children are changing, opening, becoming deeper in Sahaja Yoga. Even if children are brought up in a Sahaja family, they cannot develop the whole spiritual potential in themselves – the state which manifests in the atmosphere of a Sahaja Yoga kindergarten.

Right now, on the land which was bought and blessed by Shri Mataji in 2006, Russian Sahaja Yogis are constructing a building where the Sahaja Yoga Children’s Ashram will be located (there will be a Sahaja kindergarten and a school) .

The plate blessed by Shri Mataji which will be put on the constructed building of the Children’s Ashram.