Week 11 :
17th 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 had completed learning the eight shlokas of Krishnashtakam last week. We practised again today and concluded with the PhalaShruthi.
koti janma krutham papam smaranena vinasyathi
Today's lesson - Krishna, the divine child
We began with a brief recap of our story so far. We discussed the virtue of sharing that we learnt in the previous lessons. Krishna always shared with his friends and even the animals around him, including the monkeys and calves. We asked the kids to talk about their experiences about sharing with others and about how others shared things with them, We also asked them how they felt when someone shared something with them. This discussion was to emphasise that Sharing is caring, and we all need to practice that.
Coming to today's story, One day Krishna and his friends are playing outside. Balarama and a few other friends go to complain to Maa Yashoda that Krishna ate a handful of mud. Yashoda gets very angry and starts scolding Krishna. But the little Krishna with his cute little face denies this and asks her to look inside his mouth. Krishna opens his mouth wide for his mother to look. Maa Yashoda is astonished to see the entire universe in the little boy's mouth. She is dazed and bows to Krishna in awe as she recognizes that he is none other than the Lord of the Universe. But she soon returns to her normal self as Krishna makes her forget all this. He wants to make sure he enjoys all the aspects of a mother's love. Yashoda, forgetting everything, picks up Krishna, hugs and kisses him and showers him with all her love.
Here we talked about a mother's love and what all she does for us. We asked the kids how they experience their mom's love. There were few different answers. A mother's love is expressed in different ways - hugs, kisses, cooking, shopping, helping with homework, driving you around, teaching you different things and even scolding.
It is festival time in Gokul and everyone is making preparations for the same. We talked about what are the different preparations people generally do for festivals. Could be hanging festoons, cleaning and decorating homes, cooking delicious foods, etc. Everyone talked about their favorite festival foods. One day, Yashoda put a pot of milk on the stove to boil and sat nearby to churn the curd. As she is churning, she is also singing about the naughty pranks of little Krishna. Nothing gave her more happiness than thinking over and over again about Krishna. Just then, after his mischievous deeds, Krishna comes home hungry. He climbs onto his mother's lap and starts asking for food. As she starts feeding him, she suddenly remembers that the pot of milk is on the stove and is about to boil over. She places Krishna down and runs to the milk pot. Krishna is really annoyed at this. He breaks the pot of curds and starts eating up the butter. After having his fill, he plays and teases the monkeys for a little while, and then generously feeds them butter too. He is very happy and is dancing in joy. But Mother Yashoda is not so happy to see the broken pot. She finds Krishna playing with the monkeys. She runs to catch him, but Krishna runs away. Holding a stick in her hand, she chases him and atlast, catches him. She brings a rope to tie him up to the mortar, but the rope falls a bit short. She goes back to get a longer rope, but that too falls short. She keeps trying with longer ropes, but with the same result. She is exhausted. Seeing his mother's plight Krishna allows himself to be bound by the rope. As Yashoda goes back inside the house, little Krishna, tied up to the mortar, looks at the two Arjuna trees at a distance. Dragging the enormous mortar, he waddles towards the trees. The mortar gets stuck between the two trees and as Krishna pulls hard, both the trees come crashing down. Two glowing beings emerge from the trees. They are Nalakubera and Manigriva, the sons of Kubera, who were cursed by Sage Narada due to their arrogance. They were to be imprisoned in the Arjuna trees until Krishna frees them. Hearing the loud noise, Yashoda comes running and is shocked to see the two fallen trees but is happy to see her little one unhurt and playing.
Another name of Krishna is Damodara. This name is derived from the above story. "Dama" means rope and "Udara" means stomach. As Krishna was tied around his stomach by a rope, he was called Damodara. We told the kids that we will be starting the Govinda Damodara sthotram in the next class.
Today's activity - Quiz
The class was divided into two groups and we asked them questions from the Krishna stories that we learnt so far. The kids participated with enthusiasm and got most of the answers right. Both the teams did very well, and the winning team won by 10 points.
Gita Chanting - We chanted the first eleven shlokas and then followed Swamiji's videos to learn shlokas 12, 13 and 14 of Chapter 4. Please see the link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSTS7nJlewU
