Hari Om! Parents,
Reminder: Please donate to the Chinmaya Vrindavan Coat Drive before December 16th. Collection boxes are at the front entrance of the Ashram.
Week 9 Class
Children did this Likhita Japa at the start of class -18 times "Sri Krishna Sharanam Mama". Please encourage your child to do likhita japa every day.
Shlokas
We started with Om chanting and then chanted Sahana vavatu, Vakratunda mahakaya, Saraswati namastubhyam, Guru Brahma, Sarva Mangala mangalye (ref. My Prayers book pg 39).
Children took turns to chant the Mahalakshmi Ashtakam (ref. My Prayers book pg 40). The class learned Verses 3 and 4 of the Mahishasura Mardini Stotram (ref. My Prayers book pg 47)
Mahabharata*
Today we discussed the quote - "Where there is Krishna, there is Dharma. Where there is Dharma, there is victory". The children gave their predictions on who would win the war.
We continued the Mahabharata story and concluded the Udyoga Parva section. Lord Krishna's peace mission has failed. In fact, the evil Duryodhana tries to imprison him.
Bhagwan shows his amazing 'Viswaroopa darshan' to the assembly. Before leaving Hastinapura, Lord Krishna meets Radheya. He reveals the secret of Radheya's birth
and tells him that he is actually the elder brother to the Pandavas. Surprised by this revelation Radheya has several questions and Lord Krishna answers all of them.
Lord Krishna advises Radheya to join the Pandavas and help his brothers win the war. Radheya reminds Lord Krishna of Duryodhana's friendship. Since Duryodhana had
supported him when everyone else had mocked him for being a sutaputra, Radheya was indebted to him. Radheya also told Lord Krishna that he had given his word to help Duryodhana
win the war and kill Arjuna. He could not break his promise and dishonor their friendship. He asks Lord Krishna not to reveal this news to the Pandavas.
Lord Krishna returns to Upaplavya to prepare for the upcoming war. We paused the story here, and the class took a break to do deep breathing exercises and stretch.
Activity: How can we connect to Mahabharata, workshop #1 - Habits and Mahabharata
The children answered a series of self-introspection prompts. First, they had to define 'habits', answer why it is important to have good habits and to become aware of bad habits.
The analogy was just like oil forms a layer on water, good habits prevent negativity from our surrounding environment from influencing us.
We connected to Yudhistira's vice of gambling in the Mahabharata story and how that bad habit led to unimaginable consequences for him.
Next, they had to identify need, greed or attachment from a list of 10 things they could take with them from home in an emergency. We did a comparison between Duryodhana's greed
versus Yudhistira's gambling habit. The difference was that even though Yudhistira had a vice, he never coveted other's property or asked for more than his fair share from the Kauravas.
We concluded that just because we have bad habits, it does not make us a bad person. It is more important to notice our bad habits and work on bettering ourselves.
The last scenario presented was about speaking up or turning a blind eye. Speaking up or staying silent when they witness wrong behavior.
Here the children had to think about what it means to be a good friend- always agreeing or saying when something is wrong.
We spoke about honesty in friendship and how good friends make us a better person.
From the Mahabharata, we connected to Karna and Duryodhana's friendship. Karna turned a blind eye to Duryodhana's adharmic actions, sometimes even encouraging him.
Next, we spoke about king Dritarashtra's blind love for his son, Duryodhana. Another example of staying silent when witnessing wrong behavior, which led to Duryodhana's downfall.
Make speaking up in the face of injustice a habit! We concluded that we must not let bad habits define us. Instead, let us be aware and not let them influence us.
The children wrote down 3 good habits they would develop in the future. And identify 3 bad habits they would work on overcoming in the next few days. Please ask your child about it!
Geeta Chanting
Grade 6 is group Partha, assigned verses 1-28 to memorize. Today our class learned verses 7 and 8 of the Bhagavad Geeta, Chapter 4 from our Swamiji.
We concluded the session with Aarti and Pledge recitation in the Prayer Hall.
- Rashmi Kuroodi and Sangeetha Srikanth
Supplies needed for every class:- Bala Vihar Handbook, My Prayers book, the Junior Class Workbook Part 1 & 2, a notebook and pencils for likhita japa; everything in their Bala Vihar bag
*Reference books - Mahabharata by Rajagopalachari / Mahabharata by Kamala Subramaniam
