Hari Om,
Dear parents,
Please find the summary of last Balavihar class ( 11/19).:
· Opening prayers: Om Sahana Vavatu , Vasudevasutam Devam (Krishna Shloka)
· Activity: My Vacha ( My words/speech) and 'Choose to lose' ( an activity to show how making the right choices s important in life)
Lessons: Excerpts from Virata Parva and Bhishma Parva
Bhagavad-Gita: Verses 43, 44
Shlokas: Geetha Dhyana – upto 5 shlokas
Ending Prayers: Poornamadah
Next Balavihar class: 12/03/21
Summary: We started the class with opening prayers and then moved on to the My Vacha activity. Slowly, the kids have warmed up to the concept and are participating actively and reflecting on their words over the week and how they could have handled the situations with better emotions. 'Complaining' has been the top category that everyone recollected and reflected on. It is very integrating to hear also the positives around how they made someone happy with positive words.
· Then we moved to the main lesson: After recapping quickly on previous week's learnings, we started discussing the Virata Parva from Mahabharata where Pandavas went to live in disguise in Virata's kingdom. Yudhisthira, disguised himself as a brahmin, by the name Kanaka, the gambler, Bhima, who loved to eat became Vallala, the cook. Arjuna disguised himself as a woman, Brihannala, would teach music and dance to the women of the palace, Draupadi, became queen Sudhekshan's maid, and was called Sairandhri. The twins, Nakula and Sahadeva decided to serve as stable hand and cowherd, were known as Damagranthi and Tantripala, respectively.
Keechaka, commander-in-chief of the Virata army and brother-in-law to king Virata, fell for Draupadi's beauty, and insisted on marrying her, and continued to harassed her inspite of Draupadi's attempts to discourage him by telling him about the five ghandarvas who protected her. Bheema comes her rescue and fights Keechaka fiercely putting him to bed. We shared some interesting facts about the fate of five great warriors who were born in the same cosmic phase as Bheema – the first amongst the five to kill the another will eventually kill the rest of the,.
Further, we talked about the last day of the Pandavas incognito year (agnatha vasa). Keechaka, the warrior being dead, how Susarama, attacked King Virata, how Duryodhana, and Kauravas helped him, how Pandavas, on their last day in disguise challenged Susarama, and held him as hostage, and later released him. On the other hand, Prince Uttara, son of Virata, a boaster, but not brave with the help of Brihannala (Arjuna in disguise) as charioteer, exchanged his role with Brihannala went to fight with Kauravas, Brihannala (Arjuna) single-handedly won the battle, and recovered the cattle for the cowherds of Virata kingdom. Pandavas revealed their identity after, and Virata welcomed them with glory. On the request of Arjuna, Virata's daughter was married to Abhimanyu, with a big celebration.
The Pandavas, returned claiming their kingdom back, but Duryodhana refused to give their share, or atleast five villages, they had requested. Drona, Bhisma, and finally Lord Krishna pleaded for peace and reconciliation, but Duryodhana would not yield, thus the war became inevitable. Duryodhana and Arjuna went to seek the help of Sri Krishna, the king of Dwaraka. As Krishna saw Arjuna first a when he opened his eyes, he was given the first choice, who asked for Krishna, alone, thus Krishna became the charioteer of Arjuna during the Kurukshetra war, whereas Duryodhana asked for Krishna's army and was granted to him.
We then discussed few episodes from Bhishma parva how Lord Sri Krishna imparted Bhagavadgita to Arjuna in the battle field of Kurukshetra reminding him of his duty to fight Adharma along with explaining the goal of human's life and how to achieve the goal. We briefly went over the story of how Bheeshma revealed the secret of his death to Pandavas. With this information, Pandavas puts Shikhandi (Amba who was born as a transgender figure with a goal to kill Bheeshma) in front of Bheeshma who then abandons his weapons. Arjuna pierces several arrows through Bheeshma's body. Bheeshma falls to the ground resting on the bed of arrows waiting for an auspicious time to leave the body. We touched on few incidents from Kurukshetra war such as Abhimanyu's death, Duryodhan and his brother's losing lives at the end also Upa pandandava's murder by Ashwathama etc to highlight some keyepisodes . We wrapped up the lesson by going over Gandhari's curse to Krishna that his Yadav clan would be annihilated as he destroyed the Kauravas.Through Cause and effect discussions based on the episodes covered, we reviewed some key learnings:
- Evil mind brings Disaster!
- It is not Dharma to harass anyone against their wishes, It's how one meets his/ her consequence, if Dharma is not followed.
- Greed breeds disaster. Grab an opportunity for peace. Be on the side of Krishna!
- Yato Dharmah, Tato Jayah! Where there is dharma, there is victory!
- Revere elders and teachers
- Everyone pays the price of their own actions
We had an engaging discussion on the 'quote of the day'. We were able to revise Geetha Dhyana shlokas
We then learnt the Bhagavadgita shlokas from Swamiji's recordings and ended the class with closing prayers and pledge
Please have the kids practice the Geeta Dhayana and Bhagavadgita verses covered in the class. We created a Google classroom to communicate directly with the kids. We posted the audio files of Geetha Dhayan verses for them to listen to and practice.
Regards,
Mythili and Anandi