Hari Om Parents,
Below is a recap of what we did during today's class. As always, we began our class with 3 OMs and the following shlokas.
1. "Om Saha Navavatu" (page 8 in My Prayers book)
2."Vakrathunda Mahakaya" (page 27 in My Prayers book)
3. "Saraswathi Namasthubhyam" (page 12 in My Prayers book)
4. "Karagre Vasate" (page 11 in My Prayers book)
5. "Samudhra Vasane" (page 11 in My Prayers book)
6. "Shubam Karoti" (page 12 in My Prayers book)
7. "Gurur Brahma" (page 60 in My Prayers book)
8. "Brahmarpanam" (page 12 in My Prayers book)
9. "Krishnaya Vasudevaya" (page 105 in My Prayers book)
10. "Sri Rama Rama" (page 129 in My Prayers book)
11. "Budhir Balam" (page 152 in My Prayers book)
12. "Kara Charana" (page 12 in My Prayers book)
Krishnashtakam : We practised the first six shlokas and learnt the seventh shloka : Gopikaanaam kuchadwandwam - Kumkumaankita vakshasam - Sriniketam Masheshvaasam - Krishnam vande jagadgurum
We explained the meaning - The Lord who is surrounded by the Gopikas, who are smeared with kumkum, one in whom Goddess Lakshmi resides. Salutations to the teacher of the universe (I bow to you Lord Krishna, the Guru of the world).
Please have the kids practice the shlokas at home. Ty.
Today's lesson - Krishna, the divine child
We began with a brief recap of our story so far. We discussed the virtue of sharing that we learnt in the previous lessons. Krishna always shared with his friends and even the animals around him, including the monkeys and calves. We asked the kids to talk about their experiences about sharing with others and about how others shared things with them, The kids gave very cute and interesting instances of sharing with friends and siblings. We also asked them how they felt when someone shared something with them. They all obviously answered that they felt very happy.
Coming to today's story, One day Krishna and his friends are playing outside. Balarama and a few other friends go to complain to Maa Yashoda that Krishna ate a handful of mud. Yashoda gets very angry and starts scolding Krishna. But the little Krishna with his cute little face denies this and asks her to look inside his mouth. Krishna opens his mouth wide for his mother to look. Maa Yashoda is astonished to see the entire universe in the little boy's mouth. She is dazed and bows to Krishna in awe as she recognizes that he is none other than the Lord of the Universe. But she soon returns to her normal self as Krishna makes her forget all this. He wants to make sure he enjoys all the aspects of a mother's love. Yashoda, forgetting everything, picks up Krishna, hugs and kisses him and showers him with all her love.
Here we talked about a mother's love and what all she does for us. We asked the kids how they experience their mom's love. There were few different answers. A mother's love is expressed in different ways - hugs, kisses, cooking, shopping, helping with homework, driving you around, teaching you different things and even scolding.
It is festival time in Gokul and everyone is making preparations for the same. We talked about what are the different preparations people generally do for festivals. Could be hanging festoons, cleaning and decorating homes, cooking delicious foods, etc. One day, Yashoda put a pot of milk on the stove to boil and sat nearby to churn the curd. As she is churning, she is also singing about the naughty pranks of little Krishna. Nothing gave her more happiness than thinking over and over again about Krishna. Just then, after his mischievous deeds, Krishna comes home hungry. He climbs onto his mother's lap and starts asking for food. As she starts feeding him, she suddenly remembers that the pot of milk is on the stove and is about to boil over. She places Krishna down and runs to the milk pot. Krishna is really annoyed at this. He breaks the pot of curds and starts eating up the butter. After having his fill, he plays and teases the monkeys for a little while, and then generously feeds them butter too. He is very happy and is dancing in joy. But Mother Yashoda is not so happy to see the broken pot. She finds Krishna playing with the monkeys. She runs to catch him, but Krishna runs away. Holding a stick in her hand, she chases him and atlast, catches him. She brings a rope to tie him up to the mortar, but the rope falls a bit short. She goes back to get a longer rope, but that too falls short. She keeps trying with longer ropes, but with the same result. She is exhausted. Seeing his mother's plight Krishna allows himself to be bound by the rope. As Yashoda goes back inside the house, little Krishna, tied up to the mortar, looks at the two Arjuna trees at a distance. Dragging the enormous mortar, he waddles towards the trees. The mortar gets stuck between the two trees and as Krishna pulls hard, both the trees come crashing down. Two glowing beings emerge from the trees. They are Nalakubera and Manigriva, the sons of Kubera, who were cursed by Sage Narada due to their arrogance. They were to be imprisoned in the Arjuna trees until Krishna frees them. Hearing the loud noise, Yashoda comes running and is shocked to see the two fallen trees but is happy to see her little one unhurt and playing.
Today's lesson - 24 Teachers
Like always, we started with a riddle : - I am valuable, but you don't want me to come close to you. If people don't see me for a few days they get depressed. I am certainly not a comedian, but my presence brings cheer in your life, Who am I ?
The answer is Sun!
The Sun plays a main role in the water cycle. The sun's rays evaporate water from the earth, and at the right time gives back as rain. We must also work at our best capacity, earn and save, and at the right time give back to society. One important lesson we learn from the sun is to "Give back"
We discussed the excerpt from a poem by Ravindranath Tagore about giving. We talked about Prince Siddhartha who gave up his little kingdom, but became the King of the Universe as Gautama Buddha, and also about M.K Gandhi, who gave up his profession as a lawyer to make India independent, and became Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation.
Another topic we talked about is how the Sun reflects in different pools or buckets of water differently. It does not mean that there are several different suns. It's just one sun reflecting many times. Similarly the aatma, or the soul or the God is the same in everyone. Everyone appears different, but from inside everyone is the same.
A dog in a room of mirrors, looks at it's own reflections and thinks there are many other dogs there and starts barking and jumping around. In it's confusion and frustration, the dog jumps and barks so much that it falls down exhausted. Similarly, in our ignorance that everyone is different, we pick fights and quarrels with different people, and make everyone miserable, Once we understand that everyone is just a different expression of Bhagavan, and everyone is the same from within, who will we quarrel with anymore ?
As an extension to this we also discussed about "Namaste". Namaste is a way of greeting others in India. Namah means "I bow to" and te means "to the Lord within you" . We fold our hands to symbolise the oneness of people and we bow down to the God in the other person. HariOm is another form of greeting we follow at Chinmaya Mission.
Gita Chanting - We followed Swamiji's videos to learn Shlokas 47 and 48 of Chapter 2.
Krishna ashtakam practice - The Kids have been learning Krishnashtakam the past weeks and they have one more shloka to learn, out of eight. We practiced for a few minutes today. Please encourage the kids to practice in their free time.
Aarti and Pledge - We concluded the class with Aarti and pledge.
We look forward to seeing the kids in class next Sunday!
Pranaam,
Neelima & Keerthi