Hari Om! Parents
Namaskar and greetings
Let us thank you once again to all of you parents for making sure that all your kids are logged into the zoom session. It is amazing how the kids are adept at using zoom and they even have offered tips and tricks to us!!
We started the class with chanting the daily prayers and jumped playing Kahoot!!. The kids were all excited, and participated with gusto and answered all of them correctly. Soon after, we started the story of the beginning of Kali yugar. Parikshit, the grandson of Pandavas and emperor of Bharath, one day went into the jungle hunting. Having gotten tired and feeling thirsty, he approaches the ashram of a rishi. The rishi was in deep contemplation and in meditation and did not notice the king's arrival. Parikshit requested water to quench his thirst multiple times, and perceived that the rishi Samika was intentionally ignoring him. Parikshit is enraged and in his rage and anger puts a dead snake around Samik's neck that was lying in front of him and leaves.
Samika's son Sringi returns to the ashram and in turn her gets angry, seeing the dead snake around his meditating fathers neck and without even waiting or thinking for a moment and unable to control his anger curses " whoever did this evil deed of putting a snake around my father's neck shall die from a snake bite within seven days". Samika getting distruebed with the commotion, opens his eyes and learns about all the events!. He realizes from his his taposhakthi that the person who got cursed was none other than the emperor Parikshit. He admonishes his son for acting in such haste! and continues - a kingdom must have a brave, wise and noble king for it's subject to flourish and Parikshit was such a king and by seeking his death he put the entire kingdom to peril. He advises Sringi to go to the king and seek forgiveness. Sringi rushes to the king and recounts the whole episode. Parikshit was ashamed of his act and seeks forgiveness from Sringi and Sringi in return seeks Parikshit's forgiveness. It was too late - alas if only words and deeds can be taken back. Actions, words and deeds shall have consequences and one must reap the benefits and consequences of one's actions.
This whole episode is a signal that Kali's reign was creeping in and that great people like Parikshit, Sringi could not resist it's influence!. The power of the crown had gone to Parikshit's head and the anger bested Sringi and both were victims of the influence of Kali. According to scriptures, Parikshit made a pact with Kali to keep it from entering society in general and destroying it. As per the pact, impact of Kali will be limited to those who willingly visit places of lust, indulge in violence - slaughter houses, houses of treachery - gambling houses and greed - accumulation of wealth by any means!. Look around - we are all awashed in Kali's influence. Such is the power of Kali. As per sage Naranda, the only recourse for people, to save oneself from the influence of Kali is, incessant japa of lord's name!
At this point we asked the kids what the bad things that happened in the story - kids readily identified bad events in the episode and gave their own understanding why these were considered bad!, One practical lesson was "act in haste repent in leisure". We asked the kids to explore the story of Brahmin and mongoose! The kids were then asked to put on the zoom chat a few good words that they would like to say to their classmates, parents, siblings etc. Kids provided some really interesting words and phrases and then played the spinning wheel and each kid was randomly picked to assign the kind words they all had written.
The above activity was followed by a new learning activity introduced by volunteers at the ashram - helping kids and everybody how to pronounce sanskrit properly and especially in context of reciting the Bhagavad gita slokas. Below is the file/ link please download and make it a habit to for your kids to practice!. These instructions are helpful to anybody and will help the adults too to recite various sanskrit hymns more authentically! Follow this link https://youtu.be/BoieidXGzls
Lastly we performed aarathi followed by Chinmaya pledge.
Until we meet next on Oct. 2nd.
Shivram & Meena
