February 5th Class

Beginning prayers
      ·       'om' chanting - 3 times

·       Meditation 

·       sahanaavavatu

·       gurustotram verses 1-11 and 14

Gitaa chanting

·       bhagavadgItaa 12^th adhyaaya 1 -  12 shlokas

Story time

·    Recap of sanath kumaara's teachings

·         Unity in diversity

Chanting/Songs

·        none

Quiet time

·         none

Game time

·         Color the picture to establish Unity in diversity - home work

Ending prayers and pledge

·        pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam

·        chinmaya aarati 

      ·        om jaya jagadIsha hare

      ·        pledge

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Indira Aunty:

Today the class was in full spirits.  They did all the chanting wonderfully well!!  The children chanted the  gurustotram in one voice!  They did the bhagavadgItaa verse so well that we learnt 2 new ones!  Parents please remember to register them for the competition.  They are doing a wonderful job at chanting!

We revisited the teachings of sanath kumaaras.  But it was the children's turn to narrate the teachings.  Not only did they list out the teachings and remedies for the 6 dangerous sharks of life, they reminded us the stories for each of those sharks that we discussed in the last class and how one could subdue those traits!  We were super impressed kids!!

We then spoke about on aspect that would help overcome all the 6 sharks and give us the respective attributes to overcome those habits as well.  That one aspect is, the ability to see 'unity in diversity'!  If we are unified as people, there is never a circumstance where the 6 debilitating scenarios arise.  Would one treat his own left eye different from his right?  Would one's left arm be jealous of his right arm?  Would one's thumb show pride over his pinky finger?  Similarly, when we see that oneness in everyone, we learn to rejoice in others' achievements, rather than feel hard feelings.  We all spoke about how we all feel happy when we perform well as '3rd graders', rather than each individual child.  There is more happiness in sharing the success of the entire class than in their own individual achievements.

We have homework for next class.  The children have a picture with them.  Half the class will bring back the picture, colored in one single color.  The other half of them will use different colors in their picture.  We will talk more about it in the following class.

We finished our fun class with our ending prayers.  See you all next week, until then, keep practicing :).
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Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle: 

Today we started our class with 5 minutes meditation followed by Guru stotram. The children are learning new song, it is on Dasaavatara.

We talked about king Prthu a descendant of Dhruva. Before Prthu was crowned people spent many years in merry making, people had become very lazy they were all engaged in living luxurious life. They had spoiled the earth and had forgotten hard work. The farmers had forgotten to do farming, all the crops were dead. There was a terrible famine all over the earth.

King Prthu was very noble and righteous king. He realized that people have to change they need to work hard.  The earth took form of a cow and came to meet King Prthu, she told him there are many fertile seeds of fruits and vegetables inside her but there is no one to cultivate them. I cannot bring them up unless people put forth their efforts.

Prthu changed the people and people started working hard and all the earth was restored again. The earth is considered as Prthu’s daughter and so she is called Prthvi.

We learned about one subhashitam. 

उद्यमेन हि सिध्यन्ति कार्याणि न मनोरथैः
न हि सुप्‍तस्य सिंहस्य प्रविशन्ति मुखे मृगाः
- पञ्चतन्त्र, मित्रसम्प्राप्ति

udyamena hi sidhyanti kaaryaaNi na manorathaiH
na hi suptasya siMhasya pravishanti mukhe mRugaaH
- pa~nchatantra, mitrasampraapti

We can accomplish something by putting our efforts and not just day dreaming about it. A deer does not enter the mouth of sleeping lion on its own accord.

We also learned about the Sanatkumara’s teaching. King Prthu learned from Sanatkumaras that to cross over  the ocean of samsara (world) one should accept Lord as a ferryman with devotion. There are six sharks of mind in the ocean of samsara, one who tries to escape from those sharks can cross the ocean, The lord a ferryman will help one to escape from those sharks.

Those six sharks are : Lust, Greed, Delusion, jealousy, pride,  anger

In Bhagavat geeta chanting session we learned two more slokas 11 and 12 from 12^th chapter.

Please encourage the children to memorize the shlokas and register for Geeta  chanting competition.

Next Balavihar class will be on Feb 12^th 2012.