Hari om everyone,
In this week's class, we did meditation, chanted geetaa dhyaanam and ch. 1. We learnt till verse 33. Below is the recording for the new verses.
We started the class by watching the below video (in attachment). Some of the children said their parents had sent this to them and they had watched it already! Looks like we hit upon a viral video this week :)
We discussed about the similarities in the child's talk in the video to the topics we have been discussing so far. Once again, we were assured that it is 'Practice, not planning' that shapes our life and future. And the one and only dharma of humans is to find their true nature: happiness!
We tried to comprehend further, our understanding of the concept of God. We saw with examples that the Lord is omnipresent, all-pervasive and ever-existing. Below is one of our discussion segments -
They asked: Why is Krishna blue? How can anyone be blue?
We: He was soooo dark that he almost looked blue.
They: How can that be? That is so weird!
We: Have you seen the rain-bearing clouds when they are about to rain? They are so dark that there is a hint of bluish-purple tone to them. Just like that, Krishna was described as 'neela-megha-shyaama'.
We continued: The pictures depict the form of art in different eras. Even people looked different in different eras. For example, during raaMaayaNa, the monkeys in the army were literally like huge mountains! They were not like the tiny monkeys we see today. They were ferocious! Raama was described as 'aajaanu baahu', meaning his arms were so long that the tip of his fingers reached his knees!
They: Even ours reach our knees, what's so special?
Us: Wait, we are not done describing..., his fingers came all the way to his knees... while standing straight! :)
Children: What! That would be so weird! How could someone be so out of proportion?!
Us: We would think how one would be with lanky hands like that. But think about this, even now, we see that the average height is different for your generation to your parents to their parents... The younger generations seem to be a lot taller than their previous generations. Similarly, the make of people in different eras was different from what we are used to seeing! So was the complexion of people.
We continue: See the concept of God for any being is that - He is something bigger and better than himself. What if a dog were taught the concept of God... How would that dog imagine God? Maybe it would imagine a brahma with 4 dog-heads! Who knows?! What do we do to depict Gods? We attribute them with more heads, more hands, more eyes than us. We give them superpowers that we don't have. We make them a better version of us human. But in reality, God is attributeless and can be imagined how we choose. That is the reason why our religion has sooooo many options for a devotee. A courageous person may choose to worship Him in the form of Hanumaan or Kali. A devout student may worship Saraswati or Geetaachaarya Krishna. A calm person may opt for Vishnu or Lakshmi. As many the temperments, that many deities are provided for us to focus our energies upon!! What a wonderful way of representing the same Supreme in many forms!
Then we brushed our knowledge about the karma siddhaanta. It was impressive how much they remembered from their 9th grade, especially from the play they had presented last year.
That brought us to the topic of our stage show for this year. We started brainstorming ideas regarding the presentation this year. We are yet to be assigned a date. If it happens, we will not be sharing many details via emails as we want it to be a surprise to the parents too :). We will keep you posted regarding the outcome as we know.
We practised a two Ch. 1 verses with Swamiji's video that was aired in the class and then went to the auditorium for aarati.
Until next week, happy contemplating!
Regards,
Rashmi and Kishore.
Rashmi and Kishore.
