Hari Om Parents,
Dec 17th 2023 Balavihar class started with 3 Oms followed by shlokas
- Sahanaavavathu
- Vakratunda
- Saraswathi
- Gururbrahma
- Buddhi balam
Hanuman Chalisa:
We revised 21 verses and learnt new verses 22, 23 and 24.
Story: Saint Malidasa
In Bihar, an innocent boy named Malidasa used to take cows to graze in the forest. He used to get scared in the forest, while he was there from morning till evening, because of many wild animals, but he had no choice.
One evening while he was returning from the forest, he saw one brahmin taking bath in a river. After the bath, he came to the banks, did pranayama and said prayers. Boy approached the brahmin and asked what he was doing. Brahmin said that he was praying to God. Malidasa asked if he could teach him how to pray. Brahmin replied, "you haven't studied, how can I teach you the scriptures, how can I teach to pray?"
Boy became sad, but asked again humbly "okay… but tell me, why did you close your nose?" Brahmin was annoyed with his questions and said "By closing the nose, breathing is stopped, which concentrates the mind. Only with a concentrated mind one can see God. Now go! don't disturb me!" and shooed him away.
Malidasa considered the Brahmin as his guru. He took a bath in the river, came to the banks as the brahman had and closed his nose. He had decided to see God. He was struggling with his inability to breathe, but he was determined to see God. The Lord saw that this boy would die with lack of air and came to reveal himself.
Malidasa opened his eyes and asked, "who are you?"
God thundered, "I am God".
Malidasa was not convinced, so he wanted to ask his Guru (the Brahmin) to make sure He is God himself. But he thought, what if God runs away before the Brahmin comes! So Malidasa tied God to a tree and went to bring the Brahmin. Malidasa asked the Brahmin, "Guruji, come quickly and tell me if He is God!". The Brahmin came reluctantly, but he could not see God!
Malidasa was shocked that his Guru couldn't see God, but God explained, "Unless your heart is pure, you cannot see Me".
To reward the boy, God offered him a boon.
Malidasa asked, "Everytime, as soon as I close my nose, please appear".
After that, everyday, as soon as Malidasa went to the forest, he would close his nose and the Lord would appear and play with him the whole day. He had no fear of any wild animals in the forest.
Moral: 'With God as the protector at our side, we have nothing to fear' as it says in verse 22 of Hanuman Chalisa.
Bhagavadgeetha: We watched Swamiji's teaching video of verses 12, 13 and 14.
We revised all the old verses. Very very happy to see a few kids memorizing till verse 17!
https://youtu.be/VSTS7nJlewU?feature=shared
2nd grade kids have been assigned only 14 verses this year. So from next class we will be working on memorizing these 14 verses.
But we have a few enthusiastic kids in our class, who want to learn the whole chapter. Here is a playlist for those. Please practice regularly.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwv-WSJSokEMDUAisk23c-TudJA6lE-pf&si=82cTrT236BXy2yFO
Announcement:
Many many thanks to Rahul ji (Sricharan's dad) for helping out Meena ji with the past few classes, while I was in India.
No class on Dec 24th and 31st. Next class is on Jan 7th.
Happy Holidays and Happy New year. See you all in Jan.
Pranaams,
Ramya Belavadi & Meena Rajan.
