Hari Om Parents!
Please find below the report of the classed held in the month of November ( 11/3 and 11/17)
We start the class with Opening prayers followed by a 5 min meditation to calm the busy minds before delving into the class. We also make the kids chant Rama dhyana shloka and a few verses from Namaramayanam each week.
We did a quick recap of Ayodhya Kanda by asking Kids questions about the story, characters and the lessons and values we learnt from the stories of Ayodhya Kanda. Then we moved to Aranya Kanda stories of the Ramayana Epic.
Rama, Sita and Lakshmana spent 10 years in the dark Dandaka forest. They started to move south and met Agastya rishi who was known for his mighty powers which he had earned by severe tapas. `They met the most pious rishi Agasthya who advised them to live in Panchavati ( this got its name due to the cluster of 5 beautiful banyan trees growing there) . Rama set up his ashrama in Panchavati which is close to modern day Nasik in Maharashtra. As part of Aranya Kanda, we narrated the following stories to the kids
- Story of the 2 demon brothers Vatapi and Ilvala who were destroyed by Rishi Agastya
- Story describing the encounter of lord Rama with Soorpanakha, Ravana's sister who was pushing for Rama or Lakshmana to marry her. Vexed with her continuous pester, Lakshmana punishes her by cutting off her nose and ears.
- Story of Khara and Dooshana ( Soorpanakha's cousins) and how they were killed along with their best generals and an army of 14,000 very powerful demon soldiers.
- Story of mareecha and the golder deer - Soorpanakha runs to Ravana and requests him to kill Rama and marry Sita. Ravana, on the advice of Akampana devises a plan to kill Rama. As part of the plo, Ravana sends Mareecha, a demon who can take various forms by will. Inspite of his reluctance, Mareecha agrees to take the form of Golden deer and mislead Sita.
- Story of how Sita gets attracted to golden deer, sends Rama to fetch it and how he finally loses life to Rama's arrows but cries out Sita and Lakshmana's names as he dies. Sita sends Lakshmana to help Rama inspite of Laskhmana's reluctance and strong resistance.
- Story of Ravana's execution of his master plan of how he disguises himself as an ascetic, comes for Bhiksha and makes Sita cross the Lakshmana Rekha and carries her away in his aerial chariot.
- Jatayu's story of how he tries to stop Ravana and protect Sita but his efforts end in vain. Sita, feeling helpless throws all her jewellerry tied in a cloth hoping Rama would get some clue of the direction Sita had gone
- Story of how Ravana tries to show his riches and persuade Siat to marry him. Sita ends up in Ashoka vana in Ravan's Lanka after refusing to marry Ravana.
- Story of how Rama loses his control over Sita's disappearance and brothers start looking for Sita everywhere runs into the Faithful jatayu to hear what happened. Jatayu shares the direction in which Ravana took Sita in.
- Then we covered stories of how Rama meets Kabandha, a hideous looking monster who gets freed from his curse and advises rama
and Lakshmana to go south and seek the help of the Vanara king, Sugreeva who lives on the Rishyamooka hill. - The final story covered in Aranya Kanda is about the old devotee Shabari and her simple and pure love for Rama. Rama's and Lakshmana's minds were strengthened after meeting Kabandha and Shabari. They continue their journey southwards to meet Sugreeva.
The values we discussed throughout the narration of these stories include :
- The repercussions of having adharmic desires such as Soorpanaka's and how one should have control over our senses.
- Rama's glory and dharmic life and how is was an ideal son, brother, husband and a student.
- 'Think before you act' value through the stories of golden deer and Seetha's haste decisions.
- Helping someone in need by going above and beyond as seen in Jatayu's story.
- Discussing Ravana's character, we talked about how selfish desires and pride clouds our ability to distinguish between Right and Wrong.
- Through Sabari's story, we discussed how the Lord always accepts whatever we offer, provided we do with pure love and devotion.
Thanks and best regards,
Mythili and Nirmala
