Here is this week's update.
Week 10 :
10th December 2023 / 9:15 AM
Opening prayers and Shlokas
Slokas: Class began with 3 OMs followed by
"Vakratunda Mahakaya" (page 27 in My Prayers book)
"Gurur Brahma" (page 60 in My Prayers book)
"Krishnaya Vasudevaya" (page 105 in My Prayers book)
Krishnashtakam : We practised the first seven shlokas and learnt the eighth and the last shloka of Krishnashtakam
Rishi Garga, the Guru of the Yadavas, as per the request of Vasudeva went to Gokula to perform the naming ceremony. He named Rohini's son as Balarama. Rishi Garga named the little boy KRISHNA – one who has a dark complexion or VAASUDEVA – the son of Vasudeva.
"He has many names and forms, and no one can fully understand them. He will give you great joy and blessings. He will save you from many mishaps. Those who love Him wholeheartedly shall never know any danger or fear. He has all the qualities of Narayana. Know Him to be the same." Having made these profound statements, Garga blessed the two boys and left Gokula.
Krishna and Balarama were growing up fast. They soon went from crawling to running around everywhere in Gokula. They were becoming more and more naughty. Krishna loved milk, butter and curd. After they had their fill, Krishna fed the rest to monkeys and calves. Krishna along with His friends, loved to steal His favorite items to consume. The gopis would go to Yashodha to complain about Krishna. We asked the class why Krishna stole butter, when it is not right to steal. The kids guessed...maybe to share with others, maybe because he liked it. We then explained that Lord Krishna did that to make everyone constantly have Him on their minds. Yashoda ma would catch Krishna by his ear and want to punish him. But looking at his innocent face, she would soon forgive him. The moment he is forgiven, he would run away and get back to doing mischief again!
Today's lesson - 24 Teachers
Like always, we started with a riddle : - I am valuable, but you don't want me to come close to you. If people don't see me for a few days they get depressed. I am certainly not a comedian, but my presence brings cheer in your life, Who am I ?
The answer is Sun!
The Sun plays a main role in the water cycle. The sun's rays evaporate water from the earth, and at the right time gives back as rain. We must also work at our best capacity, earn and save, and at the right time give back to society. One important lesson we learn from the sun is to "Give back"
We discussed the excerpt from a poem by Ravindranath Tagore about giving. We talked about Prince Siddhartha who gave up his little kingdom, but became the King of the Universe as Gautama Buddha, and also about M.K Gandhi, who gave up his profession as a lawyer to make India independent, and became Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation.
Another topic we talked about is how the Sun reflects in different pools or buckets of water differently. It does not mean that there are several different suns. It's just one sun reflecting many times. Similarly the aatma, or the soul or the God is the same in everyone. Everyone appears different, but from inside everyone is the same.
A dog in a room of mirrors, looks at it's own reflections and thinks there are many other dogs there and starts barking and jumping around. In it's confusion and frustration, the dog jumps and barks so much that it falls down exhausted. Similarly, in our ignorance that everyone is different, we pick fights and quarrels with different people, and make everyone miserable, Once we understand that everyone is just a different expression of Bhagavan, and everyone is the same from within, who will we quarrel with anymore ?
As an extension to this we also discussed about "Namaste". Namaste is a way of greeting others in India. Namah means "I bow to" and te means "to the Lord within you" . We fold our hands to symbolise the oneness of people and we bow down to the God in the other person. HariOm is another form of greeting we follow at Chinmaya Mission.
Meditation : We did a short "coin drop "meditation to help the kids settle down and focus.
Spin wheel activity : For some of the hyperactive kids in our class, we did the spin wheel activity with small exercises like jumping jacks, super brain yoga, writing "Om" with their eyes etc. Hopefully their energy is better channelized and they are able to focus better in the class.
Gita Chanting - We chanted the first nine shlokas and then followed Swamiji's videos to learn Shlokas 10 and 11 of Chapter 4. Please see the link below
Verses 10 - 11 Ch4 - BG (youtube.com)
Video - As we still had a few more minutes left we watched a couple of videos from the Little Krishna series.
