1. where the lord's name is forgotten,
2. where people talk only lies,
3. land of arrogance and being cruel,
4. Running behind the wealth and
5. Overwhelming desire (the feeling of possessing more than our ability)
and hence Kaliyuga was born.
We discussed the the Hindu Creation Cycle of four yugas.
Satya Yuga
Tretayuga
Dwapara Yuga
Kaliyuga
We are currently living in Kaliyuga, where Kali/Kalaha means, "to fight".
Kali usually brings his sister Durukti with him. Durukti means "bad words".
Even in Kaliyuga, when Kali is very strong, one can avoid the influence of Kali by being truthful, kind, humble and charitable.
We can Stay away from kali by :
1. Speaking only the truth
2. Not being arrogant and cruel and
3. Not hoarding money.
The wounds made by bad/harsh words can be permanent. We should always choose nice and kind words.
My 24 teachers :
We continued our discussion about Swami Chinmayananda ji (Gurudev). As homework last week we had asked the kids to find out at least one fact about Gurudev's life. One of them had watched Gurudev's biopic "On a Quest '' and stated some of the facts from it.
Here's the link to the movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on6jlil495o
We then talked about Who is a teacher? and Why do we need a teacher?
1.Who we are and what we know, is because of our teachers. We are indebted to them.
2.Anyone or anything can be our teacher.
3. We need to have the right attitude and
humility to recognize them and learn.
4. Nature is one of our greatest teachers.
We all need a coach or mentor to bring orderliness and discipline in our life
We all need a teacher to gain knowledge or wisdom. A teacher is a coach. Listening to the coach is the recipe for success.
How can we be a disciple ?
● Have humility
● Listen, learn and follow with discipline.
There are teachers everywhere...anyone or anything can be a teacher !
When a disciple is ready, the teacher appears.
We then briefly talked about the background for our 24 teachers. It is derived from Avadhuta Gita or Udhdhava Gita, adopted from the 11th chapter of Bhagavad Gita.
Uddhava, a devotee asks Lord Krishna - how we should live in the world. Bhagavan narrated the dialogue between King Yadu and Saint Dattatreya.
King Yadu asks Saint Dattatreya how he can be in a state of happiness all the time. Saint Dattatreya tells him that he has learnt the art of living from 24 teachers.
We introduced the 24 teachers to the class today. We will learn about each one of them as our classes progress.
Today's Teacher (1) - Mother Earth
We started with a riddle. "I have eight siblings, I never sit still, I keep revolving causing days, nights and seasons. I am shaped like a sphere. Who am I ?"
It was an easy one, and everyone got it almost right away!
The answer was "Earth".
We had an interactive discussion about what are all the bad things we have been doing to Mother earth like pollution, littlering, chopping trees etc, and how it is causing drastic effects like global warming. We will discuss how we can make things better for our Mother earth in the next class.
We told the kids how before we get off the bed in the morning and put our feet on the ground, we have to pray to Mother earth and ask for forgiveness for touching our feet to her by reciting the shloka- Samudra vasane Devi Parvata stana mandale Vishnu patni namastubhyam Paada sparsham kshamasvame.
Mother Earth is a symbol of patience, tolerance, endurance and forgiveness. We will discuss each one of these in the next class with stories and examples.
Please reach out to us with any questions or concerns you may have. We look forward to seeing all the kids in class next Sunday.
Best regards,
