Hari OM Everyone,
We started the class with daily prayers - this time we had kids who had memorized a shloka teach the others! They did a great job! We would like everyone to memorize these soon and participate in the Shlokathon (this is page 11 in the My Prayers book).
We reviewed the Guru Stotram (Pg. 61) and Dasavatara Stotram (Pg 94) and learned one more verse (4th) in each.
This time we tried a new way of recapping the story from last week - Jada Bharata - each child who was present last week took a turn to narrate and complete the story without any prompting from us for the benefit of those who were not present. We were happy to hear them remember even the smallest detail from the story!
Then we went to the new story for this week - which was Priyavrata - the second son of Manu who wants to renounce the world but on the advice of Brahmaji, surrenders to the will of God and rules the kingdom. We then told them another story about the king and his minister who keeps repeating 'Whatever happens happens for the best - it is all God's will'. Please ask the kids why it was for the best that the minister was stuck in the well! Surprisingly many of them said we had told them this story before!
We then went on to the story of Ajamila - a learned Brahmin who falls into bad ways and in the end when Yama dhootas come to take him away, shouts to his son Narayana and is thus saved! We talked about the power of chanting the Lord's name especially in the last hours!
We then did an activity - they were split into two teams and one person on each side was blindfolded. They had to pick up blocks that were lying around and place it in a tray at the other end. First time we did this, each of them had a guide who could talk to them. Second time around they had to do it on their own without any help. They all realized how easy it is when we have someone guiding us compared to doing it on our own (except a couple who could see because the blindfold was too loose 🙂). The lesson here was we are like the blind person in our journey of life and face many obstacles that we cannot see but when we surrender to God and listen to His guidance we can navigate these easily. Of course we need to listen - for that we need to quieten our mind! When the entire class was shouting, they realized they could not actually hear what their guide was saying!
We did not have time for Geeta this week but will continue learning next week. Please update your availability for our stage program on April 3rd - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iYFjCSKMgspg6FyXkeCCM9Cba3HvsO-NyKwNHgrTbkg/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks to all of you who have signed up for the Soup Kitchen - please drop it off before noon this Saturday Jan 18.
We don't have Balavihar this Friday Jan 17 - we will see them all back on Jan 24th. Happy Makara Sankaranthi!
Thanks & Regards
Jayashree & Suja
Jayashree & Suja
