June 10th class

Beginning prayers
      ·       'om' chanting - 3 times

·       Meditation 

·       sahanaavavatu

·       gurustotram

Gitaa chanting

·       bhagavadgItaa 12^th adhyaaya 1 -  20 shlokas

Story time

·         None

Chanting/Songs

·        raama hare kRuShNa hare

Game time

      ·    bhaagavatam Jeopardy

·        Are you smarter than a balavihar 3rd grader

Ending prayers and pledge

·        pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam

·        chinmaya aarati - auditorium

      ·        om jaya jagadIsha hare - auditorium

      ·        pledge - auditorium

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Indira Aunty:

Today was a bitter sweet day for all of us!  It is the last day of balavihar for this year.

We started off with our prayers.  They guru stotram, gItaa chanting, raama hare song are going really well.  We spoke about how we need to keep practicing the raama hare song.  We will be needing it for next year as well.  We have learnt only half of the bhaagavatam story in this year.  The children will learn the rest of it in their 4th grade class.

We have learnt so much through out the year, that it calls for putting our knowledge to a test!  For doing that, we had two really fun games.  We combined both the sections and divided into teams.  They teams chose their names.  The first was 'Team kRushNa', the second was 'Team narasimha', the third was 'Team quiz masters' (comprising of the teachers ;).  The rules were set and game explained.  The teachers' team would get a turn only if the 1st two teams didn't answer.  We started the game, projecting the questions on the screen.  We (teachers) were waiting and waiting for our turn to answer, but wow, do we have a great team or do we have a great team of kids!!  They were ready to give us more details than we asked them for in the questions!  The teachers team got only two turns!  We were very happy to see the enthusiasm and accuracy of their answers.  That was the best reward they could have given us to culminate a great year at balavihar!  

We have accomplished so much in the year and had so much fun along the way!  We got to know each other  well and shared so many wonderful learning moments in class.  It was a momentous day today as we reached the end of the year milestone.  We will miss you all next year, but very proud to see what you have accomplished.  We are certain that you will all do very well in your future years and bloom into wonderful Samaritans!  All the best for a bright future and feel free to stop by to say 'hari om' to us next year :).
________________________________________________

Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle: 

June 3rd Class

Beginning prayers
      ·       'om' chanting - 3 times

·       Meditation 

·       sahanaavavatu

·       gurustotram

Gitaa chanting

·       bhagavadgItaa 12^th adhyaaya 1 -  20 shlokas

Story time

·    Recap of previous stories

Chanting/Songs

·        raama hare kRuShNa hare 

Game time

·         Ice cream party!!

Ending prayers and pledge

·        pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam

·        chinmaya aarati 

      ·        om jaya jagadIsha hare

      ·        pledge

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Indira Aunty:

Today was a special day at our balavihar class.  We were going to have an ice cream party after class (for our enthusiastic participation in the gItaa chanting competition), so all the children were super excited :).

We did our beginning prayers, guru stotram and gItaa chanting.  We had an extempore quiz, in preparation for the big quiz game we will be having in our next balavihar class.  We were amazed at how many details the children remembered, from the beginning of the year!  Kids prepare well for the next week as well.  We will have a combined class.  We will have teams and may play 'hang man' game with bhaagavatam questions.  As always, teachers have the choice of belonging to the winning team :).

Then we sang the dashaavataara stotram 'raama hare'.  Today was extra special because we all got to take home a momento from this year's learning.   To make it easy for us to remember this year's song raama hare, along with all the stories, the children got a book with pictures of the dashaavataara, along with the song for each avataara.  The most special part was, it was blessed by our pUjya swaami-ji, with his signature on the front.

We all got together in the back lawn, along with the other 3rd grade section, for a fun ice cream party.  We had to celebrate all the kids and their wonderful participation in the gItaa chanting competition!

Can't believe it is almost end of the year.  The aunties are going to miss you all very much!  But we had a lot of fun through out the year and at the ice cream party too.

See you all next week.  All the best for the quiz competition kids!!
________________________________________________

Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle: 

May 6th Class

Beginning prayers
      ·       'om' chanting - 3 times

·       Meditation 

·       sahanaavavatu

·       gurustotram

Gitaa chanting

·       bhagavadgItaa 12^th adhyaaya 1 -  20 shlokas

Story time

·    Wisdom of the wise

·       RuShi chyavana

Ending prayers and pledge

·        pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam

·        chinmaya aarati 

      ·        om jaya jagadIsha hare

      ·        pledge

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Indira Aunty:

Our recap of the vaamana avataara was wonderful.  We jumbled  the words of 'vaamana' to 'maanava' meaning 'human'.  We came up with our own values that make us human, for each of the alphabet of the word 'human'.  We promised to consciously follow those values and walk back into class in 2 weeks, bettering ourselves!  We also learnt that the wisdom of the wise is in 'knowing that too much is too bad'.  We learnt a saying in Sanskrit for that, which is, 'ati sarvatra varjayEt'!  

Then we moved on to the story of RuShi chyavana.  He was an old sage who lived in a forest, in his ashram.  Once king shrayaati came with his daughter sukanyaa and he people.  While they were there, the young princess wandered around.  She saw two shiny objects gleaming through a mound of earth.  She got too curious.  Without thinking it through, she took a stick and poked at the shiny things.  Suddenly blood started oozing out.  She was terrified and immediately ran to her father.  Although she was scared, she told her father the truth.  When they saw, it was the sage himself performing penance under the mound of earth!  Her father being a noble king said that he will give his daughter in marriage to the sage, so she could tend to him and take care of him.  Princess sukanyaa was a dutiful wife and took care of the sage very well.  Once when the ashvinI kumaara-s (twins) were there.  sukanyaa was asked what boon she wanted.  She selflessly asked them to revive her husband.  Being pleased with her, they granted her wish.  We spoke in detail about how the RuShi regained his youth and how he promised the soma rasa (soma juice) offering for the ashvinI deva-s in the rituals.  He kept his promise although indra tried to oppose it.  Thenceforth, the ashvinI deva-s always got a portion of the soma juice offered to them.

We ended the class with the aarati and pledge.  


See you all at the bhaagavataa saptaaha happening at our ashram at Cranbury.  Since we are all learning the bhaagavatam, please make sure all the children also attend the discourses by Swamiji.  It shall only reinforce our learning in class!  It will be a wonderful experience to one and all.

________________________________________________

Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle: 

April 15th Class

Beginning prayers

      ·       'om' chanting - 3 times

·       Meditation 

·       sahanaavavatu

·       gurustotram

Gitaa chanting

·       bhagavadgItaa 12^th adhyaaya 1 -  20 shlokas

Story time

·    Churning of the milky ocean

·       deva-s and asura-s

Ending prayers and pledge

·        pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam

·        chinmaya aarati 

      ·        om jaya jagadIsha hare

      ·        pledge

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Indira Aunty:

First of all, we have great news!  When we asked the children that are registered for the gItaa chanting to raise their hand... we had almost every hand up!  (The couple others who still haven't done so have promised to register tonight!!)  Congratulations parents for all the encouragement you have given them and timely registration.  We are so proud of them all.  Today, they chanted without the help of the script even.  We had some tweaking-s after the 15th verse.  They are all going to be practicing rigorously during the next week and perfect it by Saturday.  Best of luck to you all for the performance next week.  You will receive your time slots via e-mail.  Please be there on time, so that there are no back logs.

We recapped the story from last class.  We moved on to the story of the churning of milky ocean.  Once sage duurvaasa was returning from vaikuNTha.  He met indra on his way.  He offered him, as prasaadam, a garland of lotuses that was given to him by Lord viShNu.  But indra was arrogant about his power and threw the garland on his elephant airaavata.  The elephant mindlessly threw the garland down and trampled on it.  This enraged the sage.  He cursed indra saying that he would lose all his power and lustre and so shall the 3 worlds.  With this, the demons became very powerful and started troubling the devas.  The devas approached brahma, who in turn directed them towards Lord viShNu himself.  Lord viShNu asked the devas to churn the milky ocean, taking the help of the demons.  He instructed them to use the 'mandara parvatam' as the stick and snake 'vaasuki' as the rope for the churning.  He told the devas to approach the demons politely for help and accept all their conditions.  More than that, He told them to - not fear the bad and not greed for the good!  That is what set the devas apart from the asuras!

When they started churning, the mountain started sinking to the bottom of the ocean.  The devas approached Lord viShNu for help.  He took the form of a turtle (kuurma-avataara) and held up the mountain from the bottom of the ocean.  The churning continued.  While churning, first a lot of poisonous fumes came out.  The demons feared it.  But the devas approached Lord shiva.  He sucked up all the fumes into his palms and was about to drink it.  He had swallowed it, but his consort paarvati held his throat, so it wouldn't reach his stomach.  That turned shiva's neck into a deep blue hue.  He hence became neelakaNTha (blue necked one).  Then, one by one, came many treasures.  We have spoken about all those precious treasures and who took them.  Finally, dhanvantri came out with a pot of amRutam (divine nectar that would make one immortal).  The demons became greedy for that.  The devas just deplored Lord viShNu.  The Lord came in the form of a beautiful maiden named mohinI.  The demons were infatuated to her and allowed her to distribute the amRutam to all.  She promptly distributed it amongst all the devas.  But raahu, a demon snuck into the line of the devas and took a sip of amRutam.  By then, the Sun and Moon spotted the deceit and told Lord viShNu.  He in a rage cut off the head of raahu.  But because he had already tasted amRutam, he had become immortal.  He became a planet.

We spoke about the lessons we learnt from this story -
1)  Be polite, even to your enemies
2)  Surrender yourself to the Lord and He shall lead
3)  Do not fear the bad
4)  Do not greed for the good

We will continue further in the next class.

Best of luck to all of you for the Saturday's competition.  Do not forget to wear your participation medals to class on Sunday!  See you all then.
________________________________________________

Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle: 

April 1st Class

Beginning prayers
      ·       'om' chanting - 3 times

·       Meditation 

·       sahanaavavatu

·       gurustotram

Gitaa chanting

·       bhagavadgItaa 12^th adhyaaya 1 -  20 shlokas

Story time

·      9 modes of devotion

·       gajendra mokSha

Ending prayers and pledge

·        pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam

·        chinmaya aarati 

      ·        om jaya jagadIsha hare

      ·        pledge

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Indira Aunty:

April 1st and  a crisp, bright  Spring day!

In the story segment, we learnt about Nine modes of Devotion.
We revisited the story of prahlaada and discussed the Nine modes of Devotion.

1) shravaNam- Listening to the  stories  about the Lord.
2) kIrtanam – Singing the glories of the Lord
3) (vishNu) naama smaraNam –Remembering the Lord always
4) paadasevanam – Serving him
5) archanam- Worshipping him
6) vandanam – Bowing to the Lord
7) daasyam – Being a servant of the Lord.
8) sakhyam – Loving the Lord as a friend
9) aatmanivedanam – Never to complain and surrendering to the Lord.
Please talk to your children the 9 modes. Ask them how they would greet each other (vandanam); Offer flowers and fruits to the Lord (archanam); telling a story to their friend the Lord (sakhyam).
Homework for this week- Writing the Lord’s name in the ‘Likitha Japa Book’- This mode of devotion is known as naama smaraNam.

Next we continued to talk about the story of gajendra mokSha.
An elephant king once resided in a forest. One day, the elephant king, gajendra, entered the garden with his entire family. He felt dizzy and decided to enter the cool lake. Just then he was attacked by a crocodile and he struggled hard to free himself. Alas he could not and he turned his thoughts to the Lord and prayed ardently.  shrI hari heard the desperate cry of the royal elephant. gajendra was at last freed from the clutches of the crocodile.

Who was the Crocodile?
It was gandharva called huhu. One day he was bathing in a tank. Rushi devala also went to the same tank. huhu tried to  play tricks on him. huhu got cursed, saying he would turn into a crocodile and would be released from the curse by the touch of the Lord’s divine discus, upon which he would be able to regain his gandharva form.
We talked about gandharva- means a messenger between God and human; husband of an apsara.

Who was gajendra?
In the previous birth gajendra was a pandya king, indradyumna. He was a great devotee of shrI hari. He took of the vow of silence and sat in the mountain to meditate. Rushi agastya came to his aashrama however the king did not get up to receive him.
agastya cursed him – “You will be dull like an elephant”.
But because of the devotion to shrI hari, he remembered and he was absolutely desperate to get away from the clutches of crocodile.
shrI hari came to rescue gajendra from the crocodile.

Moral of the story/ stories- One rises or falls according to one’s action.
The birth of  gajendra and crocodile were the results of a curse. They were cursed because of their actions.
No effect is possible without a cause.  For example if you plant orange seeds the result or effect is an orange tree. As you sow, so shall you reap.  Please talk to your kids and they will be able to retell in detail the stories we discussed in class.

Enjoy your Spring Break!!
Don’t forget keep practicing the Gita Chanting.
See you all on April 15th

________________________________________________

Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle: 

March 18th Class

Beginning prayers
      ·       'om' chanting - 3 times

·       Meditation 

·       sahanaavavatu

·       gurustotram

Gitaa chanting

·       bhagavadgItaa 12^th adhyaaya 1 -  20 shlokas

Story time

·    indra and vRutraasura

·         chitraketu

Ending prayers and pledge

·        pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam

·        chinmaya aarati 

      ·        om jaya jagadIsha hare

      ·        pledge

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Indira Aunty:

All of our chantings are coming along very well!  We finished learning the words to all the 20 verses of the 12th chapter!  We still have a whole month to practice before the competition.  The children have promised to practice regularly and by April 1st class, they will chant in class, without looking at the script.  Good luck everyone.  Practice well!

Today we heard the story of indra and vRutraasura, as well as chitraketu.  Once when indra got proud and arrogant, he ignored his teacher bRuhaspati.  So, the teacher abandoned the devas and went away.  So the devas got a 'substitute' ;) teacher vishwaroopa (son of tvaShTa).  He was part deva and part asura.  So he was teaching the asuras on the side.  On learning this, indra was angry and killed vishwaroopa.  In turn, his father tvaShTa performed a yagna and created a very powerful asura called vRutra.  vRutraasura's task was to fight the devas.  He was destroying the devas very easily.  On shiva's advise, indra made a weapon (vajra-aayudha) with the bones of a dadIchi (a great devotee of Lord viShNu).  Although vRutra was a demon, when he saw the weapon made of the bones of viShNu's devotee, he was willing to be killed with it.  So he swallowed indra and the weapon, so indra had to rip him open to come out.

It does seem strange why vRutraasura was being so honorable.  That brings us to the background story, that of chitraketu.  He was a very good man.  But one day, when he was travelling around mount kailash, he saw Lord shiva and paarvati sitting together and made a rude comment.  At this, Lord shiva did not respond, but mother paarvati cursed him that he will be born as an asura, for having not had a hold on his tongue.  Hence, he was born as vRutraasura.  With this, we learnt that our tongue can be our very best friend as well as our worst enemy, depending on how we use it!

Along with these stories, we also discussed about our last week's story of ajaamiLa and the thoughts we were talking about.  Please talk to your children more about their thoughts in this regard.

Happy ugaadi/gudi paaDwa to you all.
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Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle: 

Here is the blog for March 17th 2012

 

We started today's class with 5 minutes meditation followed by chanting Guru stotram. The children are learning the Dasavtar stotram.

We revised the story we did in last class - the story of king Bharata who gets attached to a small deer and think of the deer at the last moment of his life, because of which he takes next birth of a deer. The children learnt that what person thinks at the last moment of his life the same desires he carries to his next birth.

Through the story of Ajamila we leaned how the bad company can change the person and makes the person get in to the trouble. Also how the person thinks of the lord a t the last moment of his life and gets the blessing of the lord.

The children learned the story of Indra's pride and Chitraketu taking birth as Vrtasura.

We chanted chapter 12th of Geeta upto 15th shloka.

 

Wish you all a happy new year on the celebration of yugadi and Gudhi padva on March 23rd

See you next Sunday March 25th, 2012.

 

Regards

Alka Aunty and Prasad uncle.

March 11th Class

Beginning prayers
      ·       'om' chanting - 3 times

·       Meditation 

·       sahanaavavatu

·       gurustotram

Gitaa chanting

·       bhagavadgItaa 12^th adhyaaya 1 -  17 shlokas

Story time

·    priyavrata ajaamiLa

·       ajaamiLa

Ending prayers and pledge

·        pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam

·        chinmaya aarati - in the auditorium

      ·        om jaya jagadIsha hare - in the auditorium

      ·        pledge - in the auditorium

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Indira Aunty:

Today's class began with quite a few kids in a sleepy mode :), thanks to the spring forward time.  But very quickly, the mood changed!  We did the beginning routines as well as any day!  The gItaa chanting is going on in full swing.  We are up to the 17th shloka.  The children are very excited about the competition.  But not all of them are registered.  Parents, please be reminded to register them :).

During story time, we heard the story of priyavrata, one of manu's sons.  He was a very keen learner and because of his goodness, he got to learn from maharShI naarada himself.  When they were in an in depth discussion about brahman, Lord viShNu himself appeared and gave him knowledge.  He surrendered to the Lord and accepted everything as God's will.  To understand that, we heard the story of the king who went with his minister, who said 'all that happens is for good and it is God's will'.  The king understands with life experiences that the minister was right!

We also heard the story of ajaamiLa.  He was an honest man, who was an ardent devotee, who prayed and did his yagnas, etc.  But he fell in bad company and forgot all about his prior practices.  He became the exact opposite.  He was very sick and was about to die.  Lord yama's men came to take his life.  At that last minute, he being very fond of his youngest son, naaraayaNa, calls out for him.  On hearing the name of the Lord, shrIman naaraayaNa's men come to protect him!  An argument ensues between the men of yama and naaraayaNa.  Having no choice, yama's men leave.  ajaamiLa realizes his mistake and becomes pious again!  On hearing this story, the children had a hoard of questions!!  Mainly, how come he was protected by viShNu, even though he was being bad!  For that, we spoke about a few examples regarding bad company.  Just the way one rotten apple spoils the whole basket, bad company spoils even the best of us! We heard how Vinobha bhaave's father brought him two books of raamaayaNa and mahaabhaarata and told him that they would be his best companions!  Given the time, our discussions would have continued for another half hour, but we had to finish with the ending prayers to go to the auditorium.  But there is always next class to continue :).
________________________________________________

Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle: 

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 :).
________________________________________________

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.