Unbeknownst to most parents, America’s public schools are teaching their children to use mindfulness meditation (Eastern-style meditation or TM). In a New York Times article titled “In the Classroom, a New Focus on Quieting the Mind,” elementary children in an Oakland, California school are promised peace and loving-kindness if they will learn to meditate.

An eleven-year-old explains, “I was losing at baseball, and I was about to throw a bat . . . The mindfulness really helped.”1 While that may sound like a great thing to a lot of teachers, the article acknowledges where this comes from:

"As summer looms, students at dozens of schools across the country are trying hard to be in the present moment. This is what is known as mindfulness training, in which stress-reducing techniques drawn from Buddhist meditation are wedged between reading and spelling tests."2

A whole new generation of children is being drawn into New Age/New Spirituality, and it is happening right under their parents’ noses. While some of us grieve the real-world consequences of this cultural revolution, a rising chorus of voices are now demanding acceptance of today’s paradigm shift.

Their positive spin inspires visions of an evolved humanity that is bursting out of the old shackles of Christian morality, traditional guidelines, and parental restraints. This new civilization reminds me of Isaiah’s ancient warning: “And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbor: the child shall behave himself proudly [insolently] against the ancient [the elder], and the base against the honorable” (Isaiah 3:5).

The promise from the New Age is world peace, but it’s not God’s kind of peace; thus, it is not a true and lasting peace! As enticing counterfeits develop, they will surely widen divisions among those who call themselves by the name of Christ. While the world calls for unity at any cost (a whatever it takes approach), His people can’t conform to its ways, visions, hopes, or dreams. “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).

On the other hand, our Lord has promised peace, strength, and eternal hope to all who know, trust, and follow Him:

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (John 14:27)

But those who heed counterfeit promises and seek spiritual favors from occult sources become blind to His grace. Deceptions will multiply, and sadly, children are deception’s biggest targets. In this precarious situation in which we find ourselves, we should remember the Bible’s warnings:

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." (Colossians 2:8)