Oct 20, 2013 Class Happenings

Hari Om,

This week’s class started with an invigorating Yoga session guided by the Yoga teacher Ms Mythri: First with some warm up asanas and then followed by several rounds of Surya Namaskars.

The asanas are illustrated in this site, please practice regularly.

http://www.healthandyoga.com/html/news/surya.aspx

Ms. Aparna presented the class overview at the Back to Bala Vihar event, while Mr. Sri conducted the regular class.The regular class resumed soon after Yoga and we had a guest teacher, Ms. Shantha who gave the children some practical tips on meditation and de-stressing as a daily practice.

The topic for the day was on divine glory and seeing divinity in our daily lives.

We referred to sloka from the Gita Chapter 10 verse 41

yad yad vibhutimat sattvam
srimad urjitam eva va
tat tad evavagaccha tvam
mama tejo-'msa-sambhavam

Translation: Whatever it is that is glorious, prosperous or powerful in any being, know that to be a manifestation of a part of My (Lord Krishna’s) splendor.

We will continue to elaborate on this topic in the next class.

We concluded with Mantra pushpam chanting and closing prayers.

Homework: Practice reciting this Gita sloka and contemplate on the meaning. Come prepared for a group discussion on this topic.

Regards

Vijayam Teachers

Oct 6, 2013 Class Happenings

Hari Om.
After our opening prayers of "Sahana vavathu" we spent a few minutes contemplating on some positive thoughts, letting pleasant thoughts enter our mind, being thankful and calming our mind.
We reviewed last weeks topic [chapter 3] of Rama charitha manas on the discussion between Lord Rama and Valmiki. Some of the key take aways from this topic were recalled namely:
- Words trigger thinking
- You become what you think of
- You become what you love.
We moved onto the current chapter [Chap 4] where Valmiki responds to Lord Rama's question on where he can reside, metaphorically "in the hearts of those devouts souls - those who eagerly wait for the lord's Darshan like the mythical Cataka bird which will wait patiently for the raindrops to quench its thirst, and rather persevere for its utmost goal rather than be satisfied by water elsewhere."
This lead to some active discussion on what a Cataka bird is and what it represents. The takeaway from this verse was that one should "persevere till they achieve their goal without compromising".
The students then took a few moments to think and note down what is their
1. Highest personal goal
2. What should be the highest personal goal be for a human being.
We then discussed Swami Chinmayananda's stance on this: "Prsevere to become perfect, persevere to explore your full potential".
We explored this concept with several stories namely,
1.The persistent salmon fish that makes the unbelievable 1000 mile journey upstream to lay its eggs, in the very place where it was born.
2. Robert Bruce and his pursuits.
We then chanted the entire Mantra Pushpam. The class is now very confident in reciting completely, a few kids can even do it without the script.
Homework:
Students: Introspect and come up with personal experiences where you persevered and persisted against odds for achieving your goal
Parents: Please ask your children to explain their highest goals and ask them to recount the salmon and Robert Bruce stories and their inferences from it.
We concluded the class with the Closing Prayer.

Hari Om !

 

This week we continued with our Lesson on the address of God and learning the Mantra Pushpam.  The children have been assigned homework to read the "Amanitvam -Humility" Chapter from the book "Values from the Bhagavad Gita" and answer questions in the workbook. We will be discussing this next week. Please note that some of the children don't have the workbook. The workbooks are available for purchase in the cafeteria or front desk. We will be discussing the different values in the coming weeks, we recommend all children have this book.  

 

The Children were very enthusiastic learning the Mantra Pushpam, we asked them to do some research on the shloka as to why and when it is chanted and the meaning of the first two stanzas of the shloka. Please do encourage your child to spend some time on it.

 

Regards,

Aparna & Sri.