Hari OM Everyone,
Happy New Year! We had a very good attendance this week! Hopefully this will continue for the rest of the year as our monthly program is fast approaching and we will start practice soon. If you haven't updated your availability for April 3rd please do so soon at - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iYFjCSKMgspg6FyXkeCCM9Cba3HvsO-NyKwNHgrTbkg/edit?usp=sharing
We started the class with the Daily prayers as usual. Please make them practice this at home. They can recite it for the Shlokathon on April 4th. We reviewed the first 2 verses from Guru stotram and Dasavatara Stotram and learned 1 more new verse from both.
We had a quick review of the previous class - the kids were able to recall all the sharks of our mind easily except for 'Delusion' 🙂 We then told them the story of Jada Bharata. We started off by how the King gave up his kingdom to his son and retired to the forest. We talked a bit about the 4 ashramas of life - Brahmacharya, Grahasta, Vanaprasta and Sannyasa - we were pleasantly surprised when the kids made the connection to the 9th grade play on stage last month which was on the same topic.
King Bharata gives up all attachments and retires to the forest and immerses himself in tapas but he gets attached to a deer (Ask them how this happened) and in his final moments leaves the body thinking of the deer. So in his next birth he is reborn as a deer but because of the austerities he performed he remembers his previous life and regrets getting attached to the deer. In his next birth he is reborn as the son of a Brahmin but since he remembers the dangers of attachment from his previous lives, he pretends to be dumb but lives fully realized within. Once a group of tribals try to sacrifice him but Goddess Bhadrakali saves him. King Rahugana is on his way to Sage Kapila to receive instruction and because they are missing a 4th palanquin bearer they make Jada Bharata carry. But since Jada Bharata is intent on not stepping on the ants and other insects, the palanquin is bumpy and the King yells at Jada Bharata. Finally Jada Bharata speaks and the King is amazed by his knowledge and falls down at his feet and apologizes and requests to learn from him.
The children loved this story - the deer part was especially their favorite 🙂 After reviewing verses 1-5 of Gita Ch 1 we spent a lot of time learning and practicing verses 6-8. Video Recording has been shared on the Whatsapp group. A few of them feel they are not good at chanting and hesitant to try but we have been encouraging everyone to chant alone or in small groups so they gain confidence - please encourage them at home as well - play Swamiji's video for them - they are still very young and when they listen and practice regularly they can definitely chant very well. We learned verses 17 and 18 with Swamiji's video.
If any of them have registered for the Art contest, it is due by this Sunday. Please register them for Shlokathon and Storytelling contests as well. All shlokas we cover in class and whatever they learned in previous grades are included in Shlokathon. More details at https://temple.chinmayavrindavan.com/index.php/house-contests
We look forward to seeing all of them tomorrow.
Thanks & Regards
Jayashree & Suja
Jayashree & Suja
