Last week’s Balavihar class was the
week after thanksgiving, and I hope everyone enjoyed spending time with their
families. We started class with yoga and some students had forgotten to bring
their mats so our yoga teacher told us why we need to do yoga on the mat and without
socks. After understanding why we do yoga on a mat, we started with the opening
prayers. Then we went on to warm-ups, where for each asana we recited a name
for it and a shloka that corresponds with the asana. Afterwards we had a discussion
about the importance of the Sun. We realized how much we depend on the Sun in
our daily life and how our day would be different without the sunrise/sunset.
Doing the Surya Namaskar is very beneficial for your health and improves your
body in many different ways such as losing fat calories, increasing blood flow
to digestive tract, improves flexibility in spine and limbs, and can make your
hair grow longer and healthier (this is more helpful for women). By doing the
Surya Namaskar you are thanking the Sun for helping us. Our yoga teacher wants
us to practice the Surya Namaskar at least three times a week but you can do it
more if you want. We should do the Surya Namaskar in the mornings of Monday,
Wednesday and Friday. If you hadn’t done it on Monday, it’s still not too late
to start now. We did three rounds of the Surya Namaskar starting with the right
to left. We learned all the names for each asana and recited the shloka for the
asana. If you don’t remember all the twelve postures and their names you can
refer to the link Shri uncle sent us.
After yoga in class we started with
our usual starting prayer. Then we proceeded onto our weekly meditation where
we look at ourselves from different perspectives of the universe. For example,
look how small you are in the whole United States and take it further at
looking at you from the continent of North America, and then so on and so
forth. After the meditation we decided to have a notebook where we will only be
focusing on written meditation. The word लिखित
जप means written
chanting/meditation. We wrote the word राम
or Ram over and over on a sheet of paper. We used the word Ram in our
written meditation. Since we didn’t have a notebook we wrote it on a sheet of
paper. Next, we took a short five minute break, in which we were reminded about
our SEVA project. The 6th and 7th graders are bringing
100 lunch bags of healthy meals to a soup kitchen in Trenton. We made it a competition, to see which grade
will have the highest amount. After the break we discussed about what the
meaning of a pooja is. Many answers later we all came to the basic answer that
a pooja is an act of worship. We listed all the items we need for as pooja
including fruits, flowers, offerings, and more. Next week we are all conducting
our own pooja where Shri uncle has asked us to bring the materials for it. Finally,
we ended with our ending prayers and class was dismissed.
To sum it up, last class we had a morning of
yoga where we did the Surya Namaskar. Then we started to do written meditation
where we wrote Ram over and over. Later in break we were reminded of our SEVA
project. Finally we learned what a pooja is, what it means, and the materials
needed for one. We ended with our ending prayers and left the class. We learned
many fascinating things about our culture, exercises that help our health, and
more! What will be next…
Regards,
Vijayam Teachers
