Hari OM! Below are the details of what we covered in class. Hope you had a wonderful Dussehra and Nvaratri!
High Level Agenda:
· Chanting OM and opening prayer
· Guru Stotram (Verse 1, 2 and 3)
· Geeta Chanting words refresh and Attendance
· Quick Recap using Quiz
· Today's topic
· Parikshit's curse and how he deals with it
· Do good and wise action for a bad action
· One wrong act cannot be set right by another wrong act
· When do we do a bad act? When we are not on guard
· How to face the consequences of a bad act? See Pariksit's example
· Summarize and quiz on what we learnt today
· Saraswathi Pooja Sun PM session (Sun PM Group Together)
Details:
· We started by chanting OM three times, and our opening prayers
· We continued with Guru Stostram, verse 1 and 2. Then learnt verse 3. Recited verse 1, 2, 3.
· We refreshed on the Geeta Chanting words and pronunciation
· We did a quiz to recap of class done two weeks ago reviewing facts such as:
o Who was Pariksit?
o What were the 4 legs of the Bull stand for? Purity, Austerity, Kindness and Truthfulness
o Where does Kali live? And What should we avoid ?
· In today's lesson, the story was about Pariksit's curse and how he dealt with it, How Pariksit meets Sukadeva. We learnt how a wrong action cannot be set right by another wrong action, how to be on guard and in control over our mind
o How did Pariksit get his curse?
o One day King Pariksit went into the jungle to hunt all by himself.
o He lost track of time and went deep into the jungle. Soon, he became tired, hungry and thirsty.
o Looking for water, he went deeper into the jungle.
o He was much relieved when he saw the hermitage, and this was Sage Samika's hermitage
o The Sage was deep in meditation. Pariksit asked the sage for water, but he did not answer. Pariksit asked the sage again, and there was no answer
o Pariksit thiniing that the Sage is pretending, Pariksit picked up a dead snake and put it around the sage's neck
o The sage continued to be still, didn't move and was continuing to meditate
o Sage Samika's son, Sringi just returned to the hermitage and saw what happened
o He was upset to see the insult that had happened to his father, and he immediately CURSED Pariksit
o The curse was: On the Seventh day from today, the most poisonous snake, Tashaka will bite to death this King, who insulted my father
o This was not a nice act done by the Sage's son
· How did Sage Samika act when he realized what happened?
o Sage Samika got up from his meditation and realized what had happened
o He was not happy on what his Son had done – He scolded Sringi for doing this big curse for a small fault of the king
o One wrong action cannot be set right by another wrong action
o Sage Samika also called on the king and warned him about this curse that would come true
o Pariksit felt sad and returned to his kingdom to get his affairs in order
· What is Karma? And what did you think of the actions by King Pariksit, Sage's son and Sage Samika?
o Karma is action – What you give is what you get
o We talked about good action and bad actions, and you reap what you sow
o We talked about how even if someone does a bad action, you always replace that with good action
o We discussed about the actions done by King Pariksit, Sage's son Sringi's action and how Sage reacted back
· Why did Pariksit do a bad act of placing a dead snake on the Sage's neck?
o He lost his mind momentarily. He could not think of what is good and what is bad
o He was not on his guard, and got carried away
· How does Pariksit meet Sukadeva?
o Pariksit was sorry for what he had done and thought he deserved the curse.
o He handed over his Kingdom to his son, Janamejaya and went to live on the banks of River Ganga.
o Many sages, including Sukadeva, son of Vyasa visited him.
o King Pariksit took his blessings. He was very happy to be with all these sages.
o Pariksit asked Sage Sukadeva on how he should lead the remaining days of his life, and how he could break the chain of birth and death?
o Sukadeva taught Pariksit how to meditate
o Then Sukadeva started telling the stories of Bhagavatam, and Vishnu's avatars
o Learning these stories made Pariksit happy
· How to handle Challenges?
o Meditate on Lord Vishnu by saying, 'Om Namo Narayana'
o Be on guard, and in control over your mind
· We played a quick quiz to recap some takeaways learnt in today's class
· Sarawathi Pooja Activity for the day:
o The children joined the main virtual session to do Saraswathi puja
· After that the kids wrapped up in the main session with Aarthi, and the Chinmaya pledge.
With sincere and warm regards,
Vasudha and Aruna
(Chinmaya Vrindavan Bala Vihar Grade 3 Teachers)