MITRA stands for Mind In Training for Right Awareness.

MITRA Upakrama is a joint initiative of Vipassana Research Institute (VRI) and Maharashtra Government to facilitate wholesome mental growth of school children. In this program school going children are taught anapana meditation, which is the beginning step of Vipassana Meditation. Practice of anapana involves developing awareness of natural flow of ingoing and outgoing breath.

Government of Maharashtra passed a GR No ' Sankirn 2011/296/11/se-3 ' on 5th October, 2011 for introduction of Anapana Courses to all secondary and higher secondary schools in the state of Maharashtra, which resulted in MITRA Upakram (MU).

Vipassana Meditation being an intense process of mental purification, Vipassana courses are open only for adult participants, and not for children. Vipassana Meditation helps practitioners to face stresses of life with equanimity. Nonetheless children’s lives are not devoid of stresses, more so in the modern competitive world. It was the great vision of Goenka ji that at least the beginning step of Vipassana Meditation, i.e. anapana meditation be available for school going children. The first formal course for children was organised in 1986 in a school in Juhu, a suburb of Mumbai. It was followed by many more children courses in India and around the world. MITRA Upakram is not as elaborate as a children course. Still, it has been useful to introduce anapana meditation to millions of school going children since 2011.

One develops right awareness and right concentration through the practice of Anapana. Right awareness is further supposed to reduce anger, anxiety, doubt, laziness which create obstacles for mental growth.

The introduction section of the 1 st GR of Maharashtra Government about MITRA upakram mentions 13 different benefits of Anapana meditation for children. The following paragraph from the first GR explains these benefits for students.

It is observed that daily practice of Anapan Meditation by children helps them to improve concentration of mind, awareness and alertness of the mind, improves self discipline, increases memory, decision-making power, increases self-confidence, overcome fear, anger, nervousness, increases capacity to work, better performance in studies, sports and extra-curricular activities. There are no rites or rituals involved in the practice of Anapan, therefore practicing it is essential for developing new generation of healthy mind set. In view of the above, it is thought fit to introduce Anapan courses in all Primary and secondary schools in the state.

To summarise, following four categories of positive changes are expected among students with regular practice of anapana meditation.

1. Improvement in cognitive factors like attention, concentration, memory
2. Increase in positive feelings and behaviour like confidence, happiness, affectionate behaviour towards friends;
3. Decrease in negative feelings like stress, fear, anger, depression
4. Better performance in academics and extra-curricular activities.

MITRA Upakram is delivered in simple format by VRI volunteers who are trained for the same. It can be implemented in following simple format after a request is made by the school administration.

1. MITRA volunteers conduct a session for school teachers and authorities introducing Vipassana and MITRA Upakram (around 1 hour)
2. Training of anapana meditation to students with the help of 4 audio tracks of MITRA Upakram (70 minutes, conducted by MITRA volunteers)
3. Students practice anapana meditation daily, 10 minutes in the beginning and 10 minutes at the end of the school (conducted by class teacher with the help of recorded audio instructions)
4. A revision of MITRA in the next semester if necessary.

Millions of students throughout Maharashtra have been benefited by learning and practising Anapana in last decade. A documentary film was created to record anecdotal evidences of benefits of MITRA Upakrama in 2017 1 .

In last few years scientific researches are also being carried out to investigate benefits of MITRA Upakram scientifically.

(Contact person: Dr Nikhil Mehta)