Hari Om Parents,
Shivram ji was unable to join the class due to his work. One of the class parent helped in volunteering to assist us in the class. Our sincere thanks for offering help.
We started our class with our Likhitha jaapa followed by daily prayers, Ganesha Panchratnam and continued to learn Nirvana Shatakam 3rd and 4th Stanzas.
We recorded Gita Chapter 4 until 10 shlokas.
The homework from Feb 2nd class follow up is as below
1) Learn to chant Gita Chapter 4 until 21st shlokas and send recordings to Geeta chanting team email: - geeta@chinmayavrindavan.org to get house points and also points for themselves too. Nirvana Shatakam practice first 2 stanzas.
2) We started Nirvana Shatakam. All the kids present in class received a printout of Nirvana Shatakam, we learnt until four Stanzas.
3) Please send two jeopardy questions to this email for our next jeopardy quiz.
We continued with Mahabharata from where we left off after burning down the Wax palace.
Pandavas after setting the wax palace to fire escape from the tunnel. After walking long distances in the forest and crossing the Ganges, mother Kunti finally said that she could no longer walk and was exhausted and needed to rest. All the Pandavas also decided to rest for a while. Bheem said that he would not rest and would guard them all.
Pandavas meet Sage Vyasa who guides them to guise as Brahmana's go to Ekacharanagari.
Pandavas go to Ekachakranagari and stay there in a Brahmin's house as guests.
They used to beg food as alms and whatever they would get would be distributed into two halves and one half was given to Bheema since he had a huge appetite. The second half was equally distributed to the rest of the Pandavas. In spite of eating the maximum share, I would still be very hungry.
One day mother Kunti hears cries from the house of their hosts. She overhears them as follows.
The man of the house who has two children and a little boy and his daughter along with his wife were having an argument filled with sorrow and grief.
The husband says that being the head of the family it is his duty to protect his wife and children, so he says that he is going to sacrifice his life.
The wife tells that he is such a noble, loving husband and dad. If he goes away what is the life of a widow and how the society treats fatherless kids and a widow. She tells him that it is her duty to step up and help the family in trouble.
Hearing the mother and father's discussion the young girl steps forward and tells that she wants to go and sacrifice herself to the Rakshasa rather than see any of her parents not being there.
Everyone hugs each other and cries together. Just then the little boy picks up a stick and says " I will go and kill that rakshasa and get everyone freed". Everyone laughs and at the same time worries and cries on how to make a decision on this one.
Kunti then comes inside and apologizes for overhearing them and asks the reason for their sorrow.
Then the family narrates that some years ago a rakshasa by the name Bakasura comes and captivates their city and the king of city fleds away as he was not able to protect his people.
Bakasura whenever he is hungry comes into the city from his cave and kills and eats whomever he grabs.
Then after many days and months of these atrocities the people of Ekachakranagari come to an agreement with Bakasura that weekly one family would supply a week's food and whoever carries this cart load of food will also be eaten by the rakshasa along with the cart load of food.
Then Kunti proposed to them , please allow me to send my son, I have 5 sons and I know my son is worthy and capable of destroying the rakshasa.
The hosts then said that they could not allow this as Kunti and her sons were their guests and they will reap a huge papa by doing this.
Kunti was convinced with great difficulty and said that she knows the potential of her son.
Kunti then ordered Bheema and asked him to take a cart load of food and go to Bakasura's cave.
Bheema obeyed his mother. He took the cart full of food and started driving towards the cave of bakasura. On the way Bheema felt very hungry as he was smelling the nice yummy food in the cart.
He started eating one by one all the items which were in the cart,and finally finished all the food in the cart.
Meanwhile Bakassura was waiting and getting angry with hunger. He started roaring loudly.
Bheema took the empty cart into Bakasura's cave. Seeing the empty cart Bakasura got very angry and told Bheema that he would tear him apart and eat him up since he eats his week long worth of food.
Bheema then asks Bakasura to come and fight him if he can. Then a combat happens between Bheema and Bakasura and eventually Bhima kills bakasura. This relieves the entire city of Ekachakra Nagari from the clutches of Bakasura forever.
It was time for Swamiji's Gita chanting and so we concluded our class here. Until we meet next on February 9th 2024.
With Om and Pranams
Anuradha
Important Information:
Parents who are not part of our what's app group are requested to join the same by using the link below :-
https://chat.whatsapp.com/E0cfUe3NUDYCBwYVKD7tyg
List of things that we need the kids to bring to the class
1. An empty notebook to write Likhitha jaapa and notes.
2. Two sharpened pencils
3. Daily Prayers book
4. Curriculum for 5th graders
1. Mahabharata by Raja Gopalachari.
2. India the sacred land (handouts will be provided by teachers)
3. Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 4. Shlokas 1-28
4. Shlokas- Ganesha Panchratnam and Nirvana Shatakam.
4.1 Ganesha Panchratnam
4.1.1 Link to rendition with lyrics in English https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4lZCKxeJFE or
4.1.2 Link: https://youtu.be/Oyo0FWP9fB8?si=ZaYVDepNkX0YWShI (play at lower speeds for kids to follow lyrics and hear clearly
4.2. NirvanaShatakam
Link to chant
https://youtu.be/rKx7K13OvQ4?si=lM6g_ZtX0kdF5Sfo - Uninterrupted Line Guided Chant - YouTube
