Beginning prayers
· 'om' chanting - 3 times
· 'om' chanting - 3 times
· Meditation
· sahanaavavatu
· gurustotram
Gitaa chanting
· bhagavadgItaa 12th 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
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.
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.
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Alka Aunty and Prasad Uncle:
