Hari OM Everyone,
We started last class with the Daily Prayers as usual with those who have memorized it chanting alone. We then practiced Guru Stotram - but this time from the handbook as it is easier to read - we have covered the first 7 shlokas. It would be great if they practice all this at home.
We then moved to the new story of the week - Gajendra Moksha - where the King of Elephants Gajendra is saved from the clutches of a crocodile by Bhagawan Vishnu with his Sudarshan Chakra (Our Sudarshan was very happy 🙂 ). Gajendra was King Indradyumna in his previous life and a great devotee and because of the curse of Sage Agastya was born as an elephant. But at the time of crisis, he remembered his previous life and called out to the Lord (ask them what Lord Vishnu was doing when Gajendra called out to Him :-) ) The crocodile was also a Gandharva who had been cursed - they all had a good laugh at the Gandharva's name - HuHu 🙂 We then had a nice discussion about the moral of the story - they all had very good points of view to offer! We then talked about how Gajendra first depended on his own strength to free himself from the crocodile and then his family and friends to help him and only in the end realized that Lord Vishnu was the only one who could help him. They all had a lot of comments and questions about the story - why does Vishnu have Garuda as His vehicle if He can teleport Himself, what will happen if several people call out to the Lord for help at the same time, and what happens when the Lord takes an avatar and He is in trouble!!! To which one of the other students replied, that Lord Rama had prayed to Lord Shiva! It was nice to see all of them very much involved and thinking about the story.
We then reviewed the Churning of the Ocean story from last week - they were all excited to know that they will be acting it on stage (in fact one of them thought they were doing it yesterday itself!! 🙂 We made them retell the story in their own words which they did very well recalling all the minute details - though the names were a bit difficult to remember. Please register them for the Storytelling contest! Theme is 'Giving' this year - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScl5g-YdjTV4_pczP7OsQSGLqhrUUfjrYYnsDYD6UDunZhJew/viewform - you have to record them narrating a story at home and share it.
We learned verses 22 and 23 of Ch 1 Gita with Swamiji's video. After that was over we reviewed verses 1-9 and practiced verse 10 a few times - we recorded verses 9 and 10 to earn House Points.
We hope to be ready with the script of the play by next Friday and start practice. Please make sure they attend classes regularly. We will have a meeting with the parents in the coming weeks to discuss the program. We will see them next Friday.
Thanks & Regards
Jayashree & Suja
Jayashree & Suja
