Beginning prayers
· 'om' chanting - 3 times
· 'om' chanting - 3 times
· Meditation
· sahanaavavatu
· gurustotram verses 1-8 and 14
Gitaa chanting
· bhagavadgItaa 12th adhyaaya 1 - 5 shlokas
Story time
· varaaha avataara
· jaya and vijaya
Chanting/Songs
· raama hare (4 verses)
Quiet time
· Writing ‘om namo’ in Sanskrit
Game time
· The attitude of gratitude - sharing the list (home work) of what we are grateful for
Ending prayers and pledge
· pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
· chinmaya aarati
· om jaya jagadIsha hare
· pledge
Rashmi Aunty and Indira Aunty:
Our class started omkaara and meditation. Meditation is coming along very nicely. The children are able to focus and 'guard their thoughts', while chanting their favorite mantra or concentrating on their breath. We learnt new verses in gurustotram. Now we are comfortable with the words till the 8th verse. The gIta chanting is coming along slowly. The children are comfortable with the words until 3rd verse. We were supposed to learn till 6th today, but since some of them were not sure about the 4th and 5th verses, we stopped at that.
In the story time, we heard the story of the varaaha avataara. As we had seen in the previous story, hiraNyaakSha was looking for a good fight. He came looking for viShNu. At that time, lord brahma had created the first man and woman named manu and shatarUpa. They needed a place to start their lives. But 'bhu' (earth) was buried deep in the waters during the pralaya. Even as brahma was contemplating on what to do about it, a thumb sized boar (varaaha) came out of his right nostril and grew in size. It was none other than viShNu himself. Even as he was lifting the earth from under the waters, hiraNyaakSha found him and enraged him. So varaaha balanced the earth on his tusk, then clawed and slayed hiraNyaakSha.
The back ground story for this was that, once when jaya and vijaya were guarding the gates of vaikunTha (viShNu's home), the 4 sanath kumaaras visited. They did not allow them to enter and insulted the rishis too. So the rishis cursed them to be born as asuras on earth. They were born as the evil sons of diti - hiraNyaakSha and hiraNyakashipu. Lord viShNu had promised them that he would personally come to redeem them. Hence, he did that in varaaha avataara, for hiraNyaakSha.
The children were so good. They knew the stories they had heard so far and were asking very smart and thoughtful questions. We could clearly see that their mind's wheels were running and imagining all the scenes!
We then sang 'raama hare...'. The likhita japa of 'om namo' is coming along beautifully. They shared their homework questions answers. They had all written so wonderfully what they were all thankful for! It was very heartening to hear their answers. Please check with them what they liked best and what part of the class they enjoyed.
We ended the class with ending prayers and pledge. See you all in two weeks.
________________________________________________
In the story time, we heard the story of the varaaha avataara. As we had seen in the previous story, hiraNyaakSha was looking for a good fight. He came looking for viShNu. At that time, lord brahma had created the first man and woman named manu and shatarUpa. They needed a place to start their lives. But 'bhu' (earth) was buried deep in the waters during the pralaya. Even as brahma was contemplating on what to do about it, a thumb sized boar (varaaha) came out of his right nostril and grew in size. It was none other than viShNu himself. Even as he was lifting the earth from under the waters, hiraNyaakSha found him and enraged him. So varaaha balanced the earth on his tusk, then clawed and slayed hiraNyaakSha.
The back ground story for this was that, once when jaya and vijaya were guarding the gates of vaikunTha (viShNu's home), the 4 sanath kumaaras visited. They did not allow them to enter and insulted the rishis too. So the rishis cursed them to be born as asuras on earth. They were born as the evil sons of diti - hiraNyaakSha and hiraNyakashipu. Lord viShNu had promised them that he would personally come to redeem them. Hence, he did that in varaaha avataara, for hiraNyaakSha.
The children were so good. They knew the stories they had heard so far and were asking very smart and thoughtful questions. We could clearly see that their mind's wheels were running and imagining all the scenes!
We then sang 'raama hare...'. The likhita japa of 'om namo' is coming along beautifully. They shared their homework questions answers. They had all written so wonderfully what they were all thankful for! It was very heartening to hear their answers. Please check with them what they liked best and what part of the class they enjoyed.
We ended the class with ending prayers and pledge. See you all in two weeks.
________________________________________________
Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle:
