Hari Om! Parents,
Class review for May 6th
The class joined other grades in the temple for the performance of Guru Paduka Pooja for Gurudev's Jayanti celebration.
The children wrote select names of Gurudev from the Ashtotara on paper flowers which were strung together and offered as
Class review for May 13th
We began class with starting prayers led by the students. Some students being relatively new to Bala Vihar have yet to develop comfort and so we did it multiple times.
We did not do chanting or meditation this class but will surely do so for the next 2 classes which brings the Bala Vihar year to a close.
We did a brief reflection and writing exercise for 5 mins. The prompt was-
What does it mean to be alive?
What does it mean to be human?
What does it mean to a person?
It was interesting to hear each student understand and verbalize each of these/
Some took it biologically and said to eat, breathe, move, excrete is to be alive. Some took it figuratively and said to be open to all possibilities and live fully is to be alive.
To be human, some said is to belong to the species Homo sapiens- meaning that one is a member of a larger group.
To be a person is to have individual traits. To be a person is to be kind and compassionate is what some said.
So a sense of self is experienced both as an individual and as part of a group- and that provided the perfect place to recap and review the pancha maha yagnas.
These yagnas are all ways to express gratitude for what we receive from the earth, society, ancestors, forces of nature and rishis.
We took time to explore how our Rishis are subjective scientists who turned their minds inward and plumbed the depths of what lies underneath to understand the Truth. In their elevated state what was revealed to them is the Vedas and Hindu culture is Vedic culture based, not on conscious, deliberate composed scripture but revealed knowledge. Thus it is called apaurusheyam- not human created.
The example of Newton and his discovery of gravity and its laws and Einstein and his discovery of the relationship between energy and matter were used . Gravity existed before Newton/ but it took a Newton to observe, codify and now that is accepted as gospel truth.
Einstein's famous formula e= mc squared captures the knowledge he discovered and one may not understand how it works, but it does and one has to equip oneself with enough knowledge to unpack the formula.
In the same way, Vedic mantras pack in much and to unpack ,we must equip ourselves.
This Vedic knowledge which has been preserved and passed down by rishis and ancestors is the bedrock of Indic civilization as we know it and Brahma yagna is what we offer in reverence and gratitude.
Adding to the list of things that the class wants to know more about/ Samskaras between birth and marriage, what happens between janmas, how has Hinduism changed over time,
Our next Bala Vihar class is on May 20th
Pranams
Uma and Nirmala