May 15, 2022 - Grade 9 (Sunday AM)
Hari om Parents,
We did a short recap of the Three Tendencies (Gunas).
We started the topic of the day - "The Fundamental Pursuits". Fundamental pursuits or human goals are called "Purushartha". Purusha (Human) + Artha (Artha has different meanings, in this case it means Goal).
The fundamental pursuits are desires of different forms. They can be:
Desire for Dharma
Desire for Wealth
Desire for enjoyment/fun
Desire for Freedom
The following are scriptural names for these:
Dharma - The ethics or the rules that we have to follow.
Artha - This is the desire for wealth or monetary gain.
Kama - These are the desires for enjoyment.
Moksha - This is the ultimate goal or steps we take to go through Liberation/Freedom.
Dharma is the rules we are expected to follow. Why should we be Dharmic? Because ….
Follow traffic rules else there are accidents
Follow music rules else there is cacophony
Queues else there is chaos
Artha means Wealth or the need for enrichment. Enrichment has two aspects - outer and inner. Outer enrichment requires effort and money and Inner enrichment by Dharma, helps in self-improvement. We read a verse by Sri Tulsidas where he is urging us to focus on inner enrichment.
Enjoyments of the world are called Kama. They are eight in number:
Words: Words we hear and read, and sounds we hear that give us pleasure
Touch: Happiness through sense of touch
Form: Pleasure through Form
Rasa: Pleasure through taste
Smell: Pleasure through sense of smell
Maana (exaggerated self-respect): Pleasure to our ego
Glory: When we hear glory of our name
Rest (Being Lazy): Happiness by doing nothing
We discussed different examples in our day-to-day lives where we are influenced by these desires.
Moksha is To be liberated, to graduate from the earth. This is the final goal for us. However, it is very difficult. We read a story where a man asks Swami ji how to get Moksha. The swamiji, without answering his question, dunks his head under water for some time. After he comes out, the swami asks the man what he was thinking about. The man replied that all he could think of was how to get a gasp of air. He did not think of his children, his family or anything. The swami ji then said that only when you have that kind of intense desire for Moksha will you get Moksha.
We re-emphasized that for us, it is difficult to give up desires. So, we need to make sure that our desires for Kama & Artha are done in a Dharmic way. If they are not then lives get destroyed. We did read 2 bhagwad geeta shlokas related to how desires get expressed and the other one on what happens if desires are not checked.
As a final exercise, we did a quiz on categorizing 10 statements of activity as Dharma, Artha, Kama & Moksha.
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