Hari om everyone,
We started our last class for the year with a brief meditation, followed by chanting the Bhagavadgeeta. We chanted verses 39 - 72 from 'BG chapter 2'. Officially, we have now chanted bhagavadgeeta every BV class from the very first day to the last day!! We are super proud of our students and how well they can all chant now!
We were discussing the 6th chapter dhyaana yoga in our last session. In the interactive segment, we asked where everyone likes to do different activities like watching TV, doing homework, eating dinner, going for a run, etc. Obviously, everyone picked the most appropriate answers. We asked if an athlete can have bad posture. Of course, they said, no! Then we asked how they tackle difficult tasks that they may not be good at. They all said with patience and practice.
We now correlated all these answers to what Krishna was saying to Arjuna! Krishna said to do meditation, one has to choose an appropriate place, without distractions. There he has to sit with the right posture - erect spine, gently closed eyes, chin tucked in a little bit, and breathing deep and long breaths. Along with that, the food and sleep of the person have to be appropriate too. Neither eating too much or too little, similarly, neither sleeping too much or too little. All these preparatory steps assure that he is not distracted in the seat of meditation. Then, one can do proper meditation and work towards achieving the goal.
The goal of meditation was to achieve integration of the mind and intellect of the person, so he can make the right decisions always! When one is integrated this way, he becomes his own best friend rather than his own fatal enemy. This helps him progress and elevate himself from the mundane to higher grounds. This makes one be happy and contented always!
We then summarized the chapter with the below flowchart.
The curriculum for this year was to learn the teachings in the 1st six chapters of the bhagavadgeeta. Since the gitaa has 18 chapters, it can be divided into 3 parts (of 6 chapters). Each part is called a 'shaTkam' (6). So, we have successfully completed the first shaTkam in this year.
The idea is by the time our students graduate as seniors, they would have gone through all the 3 shaTkams, effectively, the whole bhagavadgeeta and are very well equipped to step out as confident adults into the world.
This brings us to the point where we bid farewell to our Seniors who will be going to college next year! It has been a wonderful journey at Bala Vihar with them for so many years and we wish them well wherever life takes them! We are sure they are going to do very well with all the foundations that have been laid by parents at home and the teachings of our gurus!
We will see you all in person on Sunday one last time for this year. We will be celebrating our Annual day as well as Graduation day for our seniors. See you all there!
We will part with this thought,
Regards,
Rashmi and Raghav.