“When the children are in their teenage years, there comes a little window that opens in their psyche. They can walk through that window and explore their own soul’s journey and purpose on this planet, or they can shut the window and go to sleep.”
These words changed the course of a young student’s life. When Tej Kaur Khalsa first heard them spoken to her by an intuitive woman, she had no idea how deeply they would affect her, and more specifically her 13-year-old daughter, Dev Darshan Khalsa. When Dev asked if she could travel thousands of miles from home to attend the Miri Piri Academy (M.P.A.) in India, Tej recalled the previous guidance.
Even though she is a Sikh and a yoga instructor at Golden Bridge Yoga in Los Angeles, she was at first reluctant for her daughter to attend school so far away. “I was not interested in sending my daughter to a boarding school because I had been separated from my mother at an early age and it was very sad to me,” she says. And yet somehow she knew that Dev was asking to take a journey that would influence the rest of her life.
Miri Piri Academy opened in 1997, at a location just outside the city of Amritsar, in the state of Punjab, India. Amritsar is one of the holiest cities in India; it is the spiritual and cultural hub of the Sikh religion, and the majority of its inhabitants are Sikh. Kundalini master and school founder Yogi Bhajan chose the location intentionally to provide the ideal environment for teaching enlightened living.
Enlightened and healthy living is transmitted through scripture and most importantly, through daily interaction and practice. Consider tasting a strawberry with a blindfold on, with no knowledge of its shape, size or color. There is only the experience. On the flip side, imagine reading volumes of information about strawberries, their color and prickly seeds, without actually putting it to your lips and tasting it. Uniting practice and knowledge is the foundation of the M.P.A. curriculum where there are no metaphorical walls around the classrooms; students eat, breathe and sleep immersed in Sikh surroundings.
Enlightened and healthy living is transmitted through scripture and most importantly, through daily interaction and practice.
While at the academy, students dedicate themselves to Sikh lifestyle where they do not cut their hair or shave and must stick to a purely vegetarian diet. Drugs and alcohol are not permitted. “It allows for the environment of the teachings,” explains Jagat Guru Singh, the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy.
The Sikh lifestyle and Kundalini practices provide a framework for the students’ rigorous schedules. Students begin their day at 3:30 A.M. for meditation and yoga before attending their 9 A.M. to 3 P.M. academic program. In the afternoon, they again practice yoga and meditation along with team sports such as basketball and soccer, and participate in sports competitions with local schools. The day ends with evening prayer at 9 P.M.
The academic curriculum is comparable to that of a Western high school with subjects including mathematics, history and English and the addition of topics one might not see in a U.S. high school such as nutrition, relationships, and the lives of saints and mystics. Another difference between M.P.A. and a Western high school is found in the community’s peer groups. Peer pressure is a daily struggle for many American students: what to wear, who to hang out with or what extracurricular activity in which to partake. At M.P.A., peer interaction is of a different variety: support for each other’s spiritual sadhana (personal practice) and elevating their consciousness.
Along these lines, older students are supportive of newcomers, important since the school’s principles attract students from 15 different countries. As Dev recalls, “The thing that most helped me adjust to India was the help I got from other students. We learn to share and help each other really well there.” A natural sense of family occurs with the program’s students, which arise from nothing else than the Academy’s teachings and environment.
The school is open to students aged seven to 18. By 11th grade, students add a Kundalini teacher-training program to their schedule so that the following year, they can teach students and adults in India and abroad. The combination of academic and spiritual training leads the school principal Sada Anand to state that students come away from the school with a noticeable sense of themselves and of their purpose, one that is inspiring to others. The young people have walked through the window of opportunity to explore their soul’s journey and wake up.
Laura S. Marcove is a young writer born and raised in NYC who is obsessed with traveling, yoga and anything that comes with avocado.
Photos courtesy of: Miri Piri Academy
