Hari om everyone,
It was great to be back after the fall break week! We started off with a brief guided meditation, geetaa dhyaanam (7 verses) and chapter 1 (12 verses) chanting. We were very impressed with their quick learning (3 new verses today). In fact, they chanted the newest verses best! We discussed the reason behind it and figured that we had just heard the words so we were able to chant them better. So, the verdict: we are going to try and listen/practice the verses at least 3 times a week! Below is the recording of the latest ones.
We discussed the reasons for not practising. We had some very honest answers from the kids. Some said they are not confident, some said they are not confident because they don't practice, some said they find it difficult, some even said they practice but don't want to 'perform' in the competition for someone to judge them! We agree with all their dispositions. For now, we will focus ONLY on putting our best effort towards learning. Come competition time..., well, we'll cross the bridge when it comes :).
The students were asked how many best friends they had. They all answered with a show of fingers on their hands. We saw how we thought about literally 'a handful' of people as best friends, although we might have 100s of friends on FaceBook or a few hundred followers on Instagram! The next question was to count their enemies/people they think that sabotage their life. After some deliberations about different people (parents even), one of the students said, "we are our worst sabotages" and all agreed. Bingo! They were right. We are our best friend as well as our worst enemy!
We spoke about the ways we sabotage ourselves. We started with laziness and ended up with distractions like video games, phone chats, social media and drugs. Children educated us that vaping is an epidemic that has gone down to middle schools and upper elementary levels even!! We were very proud to see them stand strong and say it is a bad thing for them and they should make all efforts to stay away from such unwanted influences. We figured that it is easier to do that when we are confident about who we are and don't succumb to external influences.
Being our best friend is the best because we will never feel lonely. Isn't it? Below is the conversation that ensued -
Students: If I am my best friend, that would be such a boring and stagnant relationship! There is no growth..., to just be with yourself, when you already know everything about yourself.
Our question: Do we really?
Their answer: Sometimes our friends probably know us better.
Our question: Why do you think so?
Their answer: Because they see us and observe us more than we can.
Us: Ahaa! Now, why do you think you don't know yourselves fully?
Them: Hmmm..., we don't take time to observe. We are so busy with so many activities.
Us: :) Right! Let's see...
Now, we go to different places and make/meet friends. It could be at school, a family gathering or even a sport or hobby where we meet likeminded people. But if we want to befriend ourselves, where do we go?! Well, we had briefly met ourselves at the beginning of class..., during meditation! In meditation, we get to meet ourselves. As Swami Vivekananda said, "Talk to yourself once in a day..., otherwise you may miss meeting an excellent person in this world." Meditation is an essential and integral part of meeting oneself. Here, we get to observe our thoughts and responses. We discussed vaasanas comprising of the 3 guNas that drive our thoughts. If thoughts were waves, in meditation we need to sit on the shore and observe the waves rather than take a surfboard and 'ride the wave' so as to say! (We discussed this with examples how one thought leads to another and we end up in a completely different place by the end of it. So, don't ride the wave of thought during meditation.)
We now learnt that these were the EXACT topics that were discussed by Krishna with Arjuna! Who is your best friend and who is your worst enemy? How do you meet yourself in meditation? How do you sit for meditation? What do you do in meditation? In fact, chapter 6 of the geetaa is called yoga of meditation - 'dhyaana yoga'. Hence bhagavadgeeta is very, very relevant to us and we all need to work towards learning it.
By then, we'd already run over class time and were ushered to the auditorium for aarati and pledge.
Until next week, keep contemplating and happy practising!
Regards,
Rashmi and Kishore.
Rashmi and Kishore.
