Hari Om Parents!
One of the kid led the opening prayer by making sure all the kids sit in right posture and started with 3 OM, followed by Sahana vavatu. Followed by it another kid continued Saraswati Namastubhyam.
We followed up on the homework and sounded many have completed. So we have started going over two kid's homework. Kids presented their essay and followed by the class discussion to agree or disagree the pointview.
Essay: Vidura and his dharmic act during Mahabharata time written by Rohan Balasubramaian. Here is the link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dhniFWfLRVCAeqWr3ghdNHmg3Iq6-v2sCYpdBuZVW5E/edit
Essay: Yudhisthira as a dharmic person how he slipped to adharmic act during the gambling written by Diya Iyer. Here is the link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OygAjX5iNSgL6Ko6mZLvwSAJ62jhgwFLQ4GXAtCInEI/edit?usp=sharing
We discussed how a single adharmic action caused the entire pandavas to face exile and all the troubles later.
During this time Swamini amma Radhikananda ji joined our class to observe & participate with us.
We discussed when Yudhisthira had to lie to kill Drona during the war and how his chariot touched the ground for few seconds.
Swamini amma explained that it signifies even people who always do good can go down and also it was done to Yudhisthira to bring his pride if he had one.
We discussed about why Vidura's voice was not heard by Duryodhana? even though Vidura was Nobel to dharmic in his actions. Kauravas ignored Vidura advises due to the fact Vidura was born of maiden lady.
Both Vidura and Yudhishtira were 'Dharma Ansh'. We contrasted the voice of Dharma in both these cases. In the case of Yudhishtira, the younger brothers follow his command. In the case of Vidura, he could give good advice but no one listened. The 'Dharmic' voice in us should be like that of an elder brother - we must follow it and not ignored.
Once Swamini amma left, we went back to our curriculum on the Pandavas' birth by forming a group assigned with each pandava to come up with points to tell a story about them.
We went over Bhima, Kunti and Yudhisthira. The rest of the characters will be discussed next class.
Finally we said the closing prayer and went to participate in arati.
The below class summary was written by Ishaan Arya.
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During today's class, we started by sharing 2 essays related to the Dharma of characters in the Mahabharat. One essay was about how Vidura was the most dharmic character in the Mahabharat. Another essay was about a possible adharma in the behavior of Yudhisthira, being that he gambled.
After each of the essays were presented, there was a class debate about them. We had agreeing and conflicting views which added additional detail and context to the essay topics.
The next activity was a gathering of information regarding characters in the Mahabharat. The class was divided into groups to write the traits and stories about the following characters:
Kunti
Yudhisthira
Bheema
Arjuna/Draupadi
Nakula/Sahadeva
After a while, the groups started to share their thoughts about their characters from the Mahabharat. Not all groups were done sharing by the end of class.
Hari Om,
Ishaan Arya
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Pranams
Selvi
Partha
