Hari Om!
Dear Parents,
Here is the summary of our class on Friday, Sep 24, 2021.
Opening prayers:
Om Sahana Vavatu
Om Sri Ganeshaya NamaH
Om Sri Saraswatyai NamaH
Om Sri Sadgurubhyo NamaH
Vasudevasutam Devam (Krishna Shloka)
Mookam Karoti Vaacalam
Activity: Karma and Karmaphala
Lessons: Symbolism of Gajaanana, Karma, Sins of the body, sins of speech
Quote of the day - Every good thought sent out, rebounds with a hundred times its force upon the sender.
Gita Dhyaana Stortram - Intro and verse 1
Bhagavat Gita - Introduction to keywords
Ending Prayers
Next Balavihar class: 10/01/21
Summary: It was good to see the children this week. We had a full class! We started with the opening shlokas and then discussed the symbolism of Lord Ganesha. It was very appropriate to start with Ganesha as we always start all over endeavors with a prayer to Ganesha and added to that, it was Sankatahara Chaturti, which is observed as a very auspicious day for Him. We briefly discussed the story of how Ganesha got His elephant head and moved on to talking about the symbolism. His big head and ears symbolize intelligent listening. There is a big difference between hearing and listening. Listening intently and intelligently helps us understand and retain all the important information that we learn, be it school or work or Bala Vihar. He has a long trunk which is capable of picking up huge logs and tiny flowers too! Similarly, we should be able to use our discretion to resolve gross problems of the outer world and also the subtle realms of inner personality. The one tusk symbolizes the ability to give up the bad and retain the good. The Modaka in His hand represents the fruit of knowledge> The story was about Lord Karthikeya and Lord Ganesha having a competition of sorts. Mother Parvati said the one who proves his worth by encircling the earth and all the holy places first would get the Modaka. While Karthikeya went around the earth on His peacock, Ganesh got the Modaka by going around and praying to His parents. The symbolism is that it is more important to do our duty towards our parents and loved ones than even going to holy places.
Following this we watched a short video recapping the story of Mahabharata. Some of the children had already seen it at the end of 2020 Summer camp. We then moved on to discussing the first lesson of our syllabus on Karma. When the Mahabharata war ended and Yudhishthira was crowned the King of Hastinapura, he was in a very confused state of mind and needed guidance and reinforcement of what is considered Karma and what he should follow and what he should avoid. Bhagavan Krishna advised him to visit Bheeshma, the grandsire, who was resting in a bed of arrows awaiting the Darshan of Bhagavan so that he could give up his mortal body. King Yudhisthira, along with the other Pandavas, Draupadi and Bhagavan, Himself, went to see Bheeshma. Bheeshma gave the king advice on Karma and Dharma.
In order to reiterate the relation between Karma and Dharma, we did an activity. The children were asked to go to their refrigerators, close their eyes and feel and pick whatever item felt appealing to them. They were given 5 minutes. When they returned they had all kinds of interesting items with them. Some of them liked what they had brought, while some others did not. Some of them had past memory of where a certain item was (eg. chocolate) and so even though their eyes were closed, they brought the things they liked. The point was that while performing the action, we may or may not know if the result will be favorable to us but if we do good deeds, the Karma phala or the result will be good. Whatever actions we perform, the results will follow us and we will get the fruit of our actions! In order to emphasize this we also discussed a quote by Pujya Gurudev, Swami Chinmayanandaji: Every good thought sent out, rebounds with a hundred times its force upon the sender. This is true even for our actions. Therefore, it is always important to choose to do the right thing in accordance with Dharma.
We then gave an overview of the importance of Gita Dhyaana Stotra which is the prescribed chanting for our curriculum and practiced the first verse. Followed by this, we watched a short video to practice some keywords in the Bhagavat Gita, Ch. 2 chanting.
We have requested the children to pay attention to their words through the week. In the next class we will begin an activity called My Vaca. The children will rate their words that they spoke through the week themselves. We will explain more about this activity next week. We look forward to another interesting class next Friday! Until then, please stay safe!
Pranaam,
Grade 8 Sevikas
(Mythili and Anandhi)