HariOm Parents,
We had a bright colorful Friday yesterday with all your children. Yes, it was a short class but most of them were dressed in traditional Indian clothes and they all looked so good especially during the Pujas. Thank you parents for making sure they were dressed in Indian clothes.
Here is a summary of the class.
We started the class by saying Om 3 times and then starting class with our Opening Prayers(Om Sahanavavatu). Today's class was a short one as the day was Special day for the children to do Saraswati Puja at the temple. We did not follow normal class pattern. So, after Opening Prayers we moved on to the story.
We followed this with a recap of the different avataras of Vishnu. Explained to the parents how Rama avatara and Krishna avatara are Purna avatara as the lord is born to parents and live like mortals the lifetime from birth to when they go to vaikunta again. We saw lot of participation from the children. Everyone talking about the various avataras: where the lord appears to balance dharma and adharma by appearing for short periods of time in Narasimha, vamana avatara, matsya, kurma avatara and then in Rama and Krishna avataras as purna avataras.
This discussion took quite sometime and came to an end with the understanding that dharma and adharma balance needs to be maintained. It is only when someone requests the lord he comes down and how mother earth bhudevi in the form of cow went crying to brahma about the atrocities(Kamsa, Jarasangha and other rakshas) in the planet. Siva and Brahma along with the Bhudevi jointly went to meet Vishnu and ask for his help. Then Vishnu assured bhudevi that he would be born as Krishna to Devaki and Vasudeva. All the devas were born in Mathura as the cowherds and all the rishis were born as gopikas. So everyone came together with the birth of Krishna.
Next class we will continue our story time with Krishna's birth i.e. on October 11th. We also plan to quiz them that day on the avataras so request new comers to read first part of Bala Bhagawatam.
After our story we all proceeded to the temple for doing Saraswati Puja. All the children had paper plates with small picture of Goddess Saraswati with some akshata and flowers and raisins as neivedyam. This was done by the children following instructions from the Priest. It was beautiful to see how the children followed it with attention. It was new to them but they all chanted 108 names of Saraswati and prayed to the Goddess. We did notice few of the parents joined for the pujas. This was really very good.
This was followed by Arati and Pledge.
Few events at the ashram that would help you become more integral member of the ashram and feel part of the community.
1. Navratri pujas : We do have various Navratri pujas at the temple. So, request you to see the temple calendar and attend to couple of pujas.
2. CORD Walkathon: October 13th at Mercer County Park (East Picnic Area). Fun filled family event where you walk 5 miles in the morning meeting other balavihar families and connecting to the friends of your children along with their families.
3. CHYK Gharbaa : October 19th at the Aashram.
Wish you all a Very Happy Navrati / Durga Puja. We DO NOT have Balvihar next week. Our Next Class is on October 11th and we are waiting to hear from them about how they enjoyed Navratri with their families.
Pranaam,
Meena and Vijilakshmi
Note
1. Many children did not carry pencil and notebooks. (It is important to carry 5 things in your bag. Daily Prayers, Bala Bhagawatam, my 24 teachers, Notebook/binder (for activity and likhita japa), pencil box(pencil, sharpener,eraser)
2. Many did not arrive on time. (Request all to be in class on time. We understand all of us have a busy schedule but we humbly request you to be there by 7PM.) We had quite a few children coming into class one by one.
