December 10, 2017

Hari Om, Parents

Pleased to present the December 10th Class summary from the eyes of our student blogger, 'Suchir Peyyeti'.

     During Balavihar last week, our class accomplished many things. After chanting the opening prayers, we reviewed everything we had learned from the previous week. Next, we continued our learning of the Dharma Chariot. So far, we had learned about the four horses, the wheels, the flags, the reins, the shield, the charioteer, the ax and the sword. All of these having their own different morals as well as traits on how to act and be as an individual. This past week, we learned about the bow on a chariot. The bow symbolizes self-knowledge and understanding yourself. It also represented learning from the past and prior experiences. In addition, the teachers told us a story of a man who walked into Paradise. While in paradise he realizes that he is very tired and needs some rest. He then takes rest under a gorgeous tree. When he wakes up in the morning he finds that he is very hungry. As soon as he wishes he had food, food appears. After eating, he becomes very thirsty. The second he thinks of a drink, a drink appears in front of him. So, whatever he wished for, it appeared instantly. Over time, the man wished for many things. Suddenly, he wonders whether there are ghosts who are giving all these things to him. As soon, as he thinks of a ghost, a ghost appears. The man is frightened and ponders on whether the ghost will eat him or not. When he thinks about this, the ghost comes over to him and eats him. As a class, we came to the conclusion that the clear moral of this story was to not be greedy. The man never had enough and didn't think of the consequences of his actions. After hearing this story, we moved on to vasanas. We learned that vasanas are your impressions from the past. For example, as a baby, you are playing in a river and suddenly get pushed down by the sudden current. Although you are okay, this could come back to haunt you later. Such an experience could make you constantly afraid of water. Once we finished talking about vasanas we briefly talked about Dvaita and Advaita. Dvaita is the belief that you and God are different. On the other hand, Advaita is the belief that you and God are one, the same. We then learned about Sankara, a man who preached Advaita. Once we wrapped up Advaita and Dvaita we talked about this weeks value of the Bhagavad Gita: Soucham. Soucham means cleanliness. The two types of Soucham are internal and external. Internal meaning a purified mind, and getting rid of bad thoughts. External meaning when you brush your teeth, take a shower etc. After talking about Soucham we finished our class with the Sannyasa Suktam. We finished practicing the Suktam and the Geeta Dhyana Sloka as we will be chanting these two slokas next week at our Bhiksha. Lastly, we wrapped up our class with the closing prayers.