Dear Parents,
Harih Om!
We welcome again your child and you to the 8th grade Sunday a.m. Balavihar class.
We request you to make sure that your child joins the zoom session for Balavihar on time, with webcam on and with Bala Vihar 2021-22 handbook open. Please understand that if your child is late, it is a distraction for the children and the teachers.
Required reading: Mahabharatha by C. Rajagopalachari (available at the Chinmaya Vrindavan bookstore and online vendors/book sellers.)
Teacher's handbook is "Yato Dharmah tato Jayah"
1.We begin class with the following prayers:
Chanting Om three times
Sahanaa vavatu…
Karaagre Vasate Lakshmi…
Vakratundaya Mahakaaya Sooryakoti Samaprabha….
Shuklaam Baradaram Vishnum…
Saraswati Namstubhyam….
Brahmarpanam Brahma Havih…
Shubham Karoti Kalyanam…
Guru stotram
2.We talked about importance of Symbolism: Why do we need symbols? We showed the children a variety of symbols and asked them what it reminded them of? For example, the five different colored rings represent the Olympic Games. The thoughts that we connect with this symbol are sports, endurance, hard work, determination, athletes, success, failure, unity etc. Similarly, it is easy to say God is all pervading and but for most of us though there is a need for the support of a symbol to prepare our mind. If one has already direct living experience that God is formless, one need not go to the temple, nor does one need an idol. However, most of us are not in the category! For most of us though there is a need to prepare our mind and to make it more subtle, pure and capable of seeing the highest truth. We are not able to see the Lord in everything, so we are asked to first practice seeing Him in at least in an image/idol and then slowly expand our vision. The temple, pooja room, idol, pictures of God are simply to bring into our mind the awareness of God.
3.Symbolism of Lord Ganesha He is the God we pray to first and before we plan on working on an important evnent or project as He is the remover of obstacles. He is known as Modakahasta, Lambodara, Vigneshwara, Vinayaka, Ganapathy and so on. We went to discuss the symbolism of Lord Ganesha.
Large ears represent continuous and intelligent listening
After listening (sravanam) students need to reflect (mananam) on what they heard: this is represented by His big head
Trunk can lift a blade of grass as well as move logs of wood: so the trunk represents perfect discrimination. Discriminating fully in the outer world for resolving gross problems and at same time use it in the subtle realms of the inner personality.
Broken tusk represents that the person has analyzed the matter in the head, has thought through the good and bad and made the appropriate decision
Large belly represents the place where He has stored all his wisdom
Significance of 4 hands: the axe is to cut off all our attachments and hence end our sorrows
With the rope, He pulls his devotees closer to Him, the modaka is the rewards of sadhana and austerity, and with the fourth hand He blesses us all, protects us from all obstacles in our spiritual path.
His one leg folded and the other dangling represents that He has integrated both subtle and gross bodies into one (i.e. an intellect into which the mind has folded). A perfect man of wisdom integrates both the physical and subtle bodies. All the cosmic forces become his servant and seek shelter at his feet.
The mouse at His feet represents an obedient mind. Our mind behaves like a monkey: jumping from one thought to another. However, by sincerely praying to Lord Ganesha, we can tame this mind and focus our energy on the task at hand.
4. Dharma: In this class we will be weaving in various stories from the Mahabharatha to help the children understand the concept of duties and Dharma.
Gave a brief introduction of the epic Mahabharata written by Veda Vyaasa and contains 100,000 verses. It is the story of the Kuru dynasty consisting of cousins Kauravas and Pandavas. While Pandavas were by no means perfect, they always listened to Sri Krishna and followed his advice – hence they were victorious. In the Mahabharatha, after the war is over Yudhisthira is very dejected. He did not feel better even when his ministers, sages and even Lord Krishna advised him. Then Lord Krishna took him to Bhisma. Yudhisthira asks Bhisma many questions and Bhisma answers them all patiently with Lord's blessing. We deal with one of the questions in our curriculum "If one wants a good life, what kind of actions one should avoid?" Bhisma replies that in order to have a happy and peaceful life, one has to give up 10 karmas – 3 of body, 4 of speech and 3 of mind – these will be elaborated in next class..
Law of Karma was discussed:
a.Every action/karma has a result (Karmaphala)
b.Performer of the action alone gets the result
c.Result of karma will come at right time. Result may be immediate or may take several lifetimes to fructify. We had discussion with the kids about karma and karmaphala. It is important to understand that we can shape our own destiny. "What you have in life today are because of actions that you have performed in the past. If you don't follow your Dharma and perform wrong actions, you only will have to face the consequences."
We ended with the story of King and wise old man where following questions were answered:
1. What is the right time to start the work?
Now.
2. Who is the most important person?
The person in front of you with whom you are talking is the most important person.
3. What is the most important work?
To use our body to serve others is the most important work.
Pranam,
Mekhala Girish
Devender Akula