Hari om Parents,
After our starting prayers. We continued with the next few qualities in the 'qualities we must have'. We discussed Shraddha (Faith), Covet not wealth and 'Arise, Awake' - the quality to identify the real in ourselves.
Shraddha (Faith) is defined by Shri Adi Shankaracharya in Tatva Bhodha as Faith in the words of the Guru and in the scriptures. Swami Chinmayananda in his unique style said Faith is to believe what you do not see. The Reward of which is that you see what you believed. Rabindranath Tagore, a poet and India's freedom fighter, said "Faith is a bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark."
Each of the above tells us that faith gives us strength when there is no visible proof available to believe but we still believe.
We saw a video of Swami Chinmayananda where he explains Bhagwad Geeta ch7 v21. Where the lord promises to strengthen your faith for getting anything by strengthening that faith. The two main things that are needed to achieve this are understanding and devotion.
The faith in humanity is also similar. Even though there are many aspects to worry about, humanity has shown that it can achieve the impossible. We saw a short video of some inspiring stories around this theme.
We showed a picture of Paramacharya of Kanchi Kama Koti. He had a simple farmer who was very devoted to him. He prayed to Paramacharya everyday and he believed that Paramacharya would take care of all his difficulties. When it was time for the farmer's daughter's marriage, he needed money. The farmer went to paramcharya and asked for money. Paramcharya recognized the true devotion in the farmer and asked him to ask the goddess in the temple for it. The famer went in and prayed saying "Paramacharya asked me to come to you and ask for money, so I am praying to you. Please arrange this for me." Even as the farmer was coming out, a rich merchant left some money at paramcharya saying please give it to anyone who needs it. Thus, the farmer got the money he wanted by his true devotion to paramcharya, even though paramcharya lived an extremely frugal sanyaasi life with no possessions. (Taken from Sri Chaganti Koteswara Rao pravachanams)
The next quality was 'Covet not Wealth'. Isavasaya Upanishad starts with the following shloka.
ईशावास्यमिदं सर्वं यत्किञ्च जगत्यां जगत् ।
तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जीथा मा गृधः कस्य स्विद्धनम् ॥ १ ॥
īśāvāsyamidaṃ sarvaṃ yatkiñca jagatyāṃ jagat |
tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā mā gṛdhaḥ kasya sviddhanam || 1 ||
It means that All this—whatsoever moves in this earth, including the universe, is pervaded or enveloped by the Lord. Covet not anybody's wealth. So, there is enough for everyone and we should be content with what we have. Another way of looking at this is that any of our ownership is temporary. We came empty handed and will leave empty handed. How does it matter what we own and why should we covet?
We read a story of Satyakama, a disciple of Gautama rsi. Gautama rsi helped evolve Satyakama by giving him a task to herd 400 weak cows to the forest and come back with a 1000 of them. Satyakama practically realized that the whole world is one family - Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (from Chandogya upanishad).
Later, when Satyakama returned back to his guru, the guru told him that just as all waves in the ocean are nothing but the ocean, so also, everything is nothing but a part of Brahman. Brahman is everywhere. Everything comes from Brahman and goes back to Brahman. Truly speaking you are Brahman only. This is an important teaching for us all.
The quality "Arise, Awake" talks about our challenges with understanding the reality around us. What is real and what is imaginary?
We read a story of King Janaka where he gets a very bad dream where he loses his entire kingdom and is roaming around hungry. He suddenly wakes up from his dream. He then gets very confused and keeps asking "Is that real or is this real?". He becomes distracted and keeps repeating this question. Everyone thinks that he has become mentally ill. Eventually, Ashtavakra comes to help him. He says that neither is that true nor is this true.
(Taken from Manglore chinmaya - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ENNWWAvyDCRMjf8WtwRQmKVoBQCkM9BYr6MUcVNBEI4/edit )
We discussed that anything that does not exist in the past, present or future can be considered untrue. In our daily lives, we live in Waking, Dreaming or Deep sleep states. Since, each of these states are temporary, they can be considered untrue. There is a fourth state or Turiya that can be considered real.
The attachment to object, mind or some other aspects distort our perception of reality. We saw two video clips from the movie 'The Matrix' to try and explain this concept.
The first one was where a question was posed - 'How do we know if we are dreaming or waking when the dream itself feels very real. How would we know which is the real world and which one is the dream world?'.
The second snippet was trying to explain how we perceive objects. Are the objects real or is it the mind projecting our experience of the object? So, if our experience changes do the objects appear differently?
It is not easy to wake up even if we want to because of our preoccupation with the world of objects, worldly pleasures. How do we do it then?
Pujya Gurudeva says "Unless you find greater happiness, there is no way to break away from worldly pleasure. Until you grow and lift your mind to greater pleasures, lower pleasures will not leave you. "
There are five layers of experience - Physical layer (Annamaya Kosha), Breath or Energy (Pranamaya Kosha), Mind (Manomaya Kosha), Intellect (Vigyanamaya Kosha) and Bliss (Anandmaya Kosha).
Our objective in Arise, Awake is to attempt to connect with the greater pleasure. If we are connecting too much in material objects, we should try to go to the next layer of simple breath and energy control to experience more joy. If we are excessive in our mind layer, we should try to get a better understanding of reality using our Intellect. Eventually, we will get to the highest experience in the Bliss layer.
Other Sunday AM, Grade 9 2021-22 class summaries in https://cmnjparentportal21-22.blogspot.com/search/label/Gr%209%20-%20Sunday%20AM
Regards,
Rukmani & Partha