Below is a summary of what we did in our last Sunday's class on Oct 24th.
We started our class with 3 Oms followed by Sahana vavatu
OM saha nāvavatu
saha nau bhunaktu
saha vīryam karavāvahai
tejasvināvadhītamastu
mā vidviṣāvahai
OM śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ
and then also said the following 3 Chants listed below
Om Sri Ganeshaya namaha, Om Sri Saraswathye namaha, Om Sri Sat Gurubyoh namaha
Shlokas -- We continued to revise the two shloka from our prior classes and learnt a new one
Vakratunda Mahākāya
Vakratunda Mahaakaaya sooryakoti samaprabha
nirvighnam kurume deva sarva karyeshu sarvada
Saraswati Namastubhyam
Sarasvati namastubhyaṃ varade kāmarūpiṇi
vidyārambhaṃ kariṣyāmi siddhirbhavatu me sadā
Karāgre Vasate Lakṣmīh
Karāgre Vasate Lakṣmīh karamūle sarasvatī
karamadhye tu govindaḥ, prabhāte karadarśanam
Yoga -- We moved on to a few Yoga stretches and poses. We did a tree pose, a lion pose and our butterfly pose.
Bhajans --- We then sang our two bhajans
1) jaya jaya devii, jaya jaya devii, durgaa devii sharaNam
jaya jaya devii, jaya jaya devii, durgaa devii sharaNam
kanaka durgaa devii sharaNam, kanaka durga devii sharaNam
2) Great God Ganapathi, I bow to Thee, Elephant faced One, I bow to Thee
Delight of Lord Shiva, I take refuge in Thee, O big bellied son of Mother Parvathi
Infinite Om, Oh I bow to Thee , You ride on your mouse and win Victory
Meditation/Numbers and colors --- After bhajans we played our meditation game. Our kids did an awesome job of closing their eyes and counting in their mind. We learnt how to tell the numbers from 1 to 10 in Sanskrit :
1. One (ekam) 2. Two (dve) 3.Three (treeni) 4. Four (chatvaari) 5. Five (pancha) 6. Six (shat)
7. Seven (sapta) 8. Eight (ashta) 9. Nine (nava) 10. Ten (dasha)
We learnt how to say colors in Sanskrit like
Red – Raktaha White - Shvetah
Yellow – Peethaha Black - Krishnaha
Blue – Neelaha Green – Harithaha
Gita -- Before we moved to story we revised chanting the Bhagavad Gita : Chapter 2, Verse 39 from our handbook.
Story --- With Diwali coming up our story for this week was 'Mata Lakshmi comes to visit' The story goes like this -
On Diwali day, Mata Lakshmi comes to visit us. She comes flying on her owl and she reaches India and visits so many people. We have to be ready for her when comes. Mata Lakskmi doesn't like messy houses. As she comes visiting houses, she stops by the first house and sees that the house was dark and not decorated at all. So, she says ok let me go to the next house. In the next house she sees there are beautiful flowers/thoran decorated outside the house with lovely rangoli but the house was dark with not lamps lit. Mata Lakshmi is still not sure and says " ok let me see the next house". The next house had lovely rangoli and decorations outside the house and there were also lamps lit outside - but when she opens the house, she sees the house is dusty and very messy. Oh no! Mata Lakshmi says "hm.. Let me see another house first then". As she goes to the next house, she sees there were so many lights, and people were so loud having a party that she decided 'I think I better go back home". While she was riding on her owl on the way back home, she saw one small house, beautifully decorated with lamps, lovely flowers and thoran outside and pretty rangoli. She opened the door and sees this house is clean and notices a young girl sitting inside praying to Lakshmi Devi with sweets and fruits as offerings. Lakshmi Mata was very happy she finally could come into a house that was ready for her on the auspicious day of Diwali and blessed the girl with wealth and prosperity.
We heard the story on how we get our house ready for Diwali. It was then time to make our craft which was a Thoran with paper flowers and leaves.
Closing Prayer -- We wrapped up our session with our closing prayers
Om pūrṇamadaḥ pūrṇamidam pūrṇāt pūrṇamudacyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇamādāya pūrṇamevā vaśiṣyate
Our next class is on Sunday Oct 31st @ 9.15am. Please remember to wear Yellow for our house color!! Zoom link is the same as our last class and we will send out a reminder via our class whatsapp ahead of the day. Attached is a link to our Bala Vihar handbook for this year.
Pranams,
Vidya and Pramila