Hari OM Everyone,
We started our class with daily prayers - when we did the Gangecha yamunaicheva the kids recognized all the rivers except Sindhu..so we had a small discussion about how people living on the banks of Sindhu became known as Hindus and how our religion is actually known as Sanatana Dharma.
After that we reviewed the Vinayaka Bhajan we learnt in the earlier classes. We did a quick recap of what we learned in the previous class about Kapila Muni and his teachings including what is the essence of Dharma - don't do unto others what you don't want to be done to you! We really need to practice this in class as we have a very highly energetic class who find it difficult to keep their hands and feet to themselves 🙂 We discussed a bit about paapa and punya and how when we do bad actions the results will be bad and when we do good actions results will be good.
We told them the story of Shiva and Sati. They all realized that Daksha suffered because of his pride! And we discussed how even if he did Yagna etc he did not have love for God initially! He then realized his mistake and got a different head. Please ask them what head he got and why!
We had a quick break to get our class pictures taken - please look out for these in the Surabhi souvenir that will be released this Friday.
We then told them another small story - a sparrow that is dancing on one leg in the hot sun - Sage Narada meets and asks if the sparrow wants anything from Bhagawan as he is going to meet him in Vaikunta - the sparrow says a huge tree with green leaves above her head will be nice. When Narada conveys this to Lord Vishnu, He says because of her past the sparrow will not have a roof over her head for the next few lives. Narada Muni is saddened and wonders how to tell the news to the sparrow - but to his great surprise when he goes back the sparrow is under a huge green tree and dancing happily. Narada Muni goes back to Bhagawan and asks how this is possible - He answers that it is because of the attitude of the sparrow - even when she was in the hot sun, the little sparrow alternately hopped on one foot and kept saying - Thank you God for giving me two feet - if I had only one it would have burned by now! Her attitude helped change her destiny and she was able to get a roof over head in that very birth itself. The children seemed to love that story - we discussed this attitude of gratitude and what things we were all grateful for! One kid was so sweet to say that he is grateful for his Balavihar teachers!! 🙂 We will be continuing this discussion in the next class as well.
We then learned how to read the transliteration in the Geeta and practiced the first verse a few times before learning the 3rd and 4th verses with Swamiji's video. Hopefully if they all practice at home we will be able to record them as a class in the first week of December.
There is no Balavihar this week as well - next class will be on Nov 22nd. Thanks to all the kids who brought in items for the Sewa Diwali project - it has all been delivered. We are moving on to our annual Thanksgiving seva project - you can send in mashed potatoes (dry) and cranberry sauce, desserts and other canned foods with the kids. These will be made into Thanksgiving Gift baskets by the older grades and delivered to HomeFront an organization near Trenton.
Thanks & Regards
Jayashree & Suja
Jayashree & Suja
