Hari Om Parents,
1. Initial opening prayers. We started learning chanting of following mantra from Sri Rudam:
नमस्ते अस्तु भगवन विश्र्वेश्र्वराय महादेवाय त्र्यम्बकाय त्रिपुरान्तकाय
त्रिकालाग्निकालाय कालाग्निरुद्राय नीलकण्ठाय मृत्युंजयाय सर्वेश्र्वराय सदाशिवाय
श्रीमन् महादेवाय नमः
2. Once a King got very angry and ordered his ministers to cover the whole earth with leather as his queen got blisters in her feet when she went to the temple. Obviously ministers were very perplexed with the king's response. All that is needed is a pair of sandals and queen's problem is taken care of. Similarly all we need is a pair of proper shoes to roam around in this world without getting any of blisters in our heart! When we look at the cosmos our earth is a very small dot and in it our house and our body is even smaller insignificant portion. So when we consider the vastness of the universe or the globe there not too many things that we can change. Yet we get unduly proud of our achievements and get to egoistic trying to change people, situations and beings. If we really think about it, there are not too many things we can change - can we change sunshine to rain, can we change the behavior of our siblings or parents, can we change the color of our skin? If we honestly introspect, the only thing that we can really change is - ourselves! During this year in Balavihar we all will explore how we can change ourselves to be better person.
3. We reminded students what we taught in last class - Pujya Gurudev said, "Man's control of nature external is civilization. His control of nature internal is culture." He states that when a group of people, live together for a long time, in a particular geographical area, following certain values the special individuality or fragrance that emerges from that group is their culture. Sanskrit word for culture is "samskrti". Sam = very well, krtam = that which is done; smaskrti = "that which is very well made, very well refined". Individual nature is called samskara.
4. Inherent nature or tendency of a thing is called his prakriti. Animals live according to their desires. Their urges and pursuits are controlled by nature. They remain within limits and never transgress nature. For example, cow will always be vegetarian and tiger will always eat meat no matter what. In this contest vikriti is translated as perversion. When our urges or desires grow out of proportion and transgress the limits of prakriti, it becomes vikriti. For humans have the freedom to act. For example talking on the phone for too long, watching television for too long while you should be studying, sleeping for longer hours and being lazy etc. We then asked the children what they thought was difference between freedom and licentiousness. Freedom when it is not bound by certain discipline and restraint it can degenerate into licentiousness. Freedom itself is built on the foundation of self-restraint. For example when we get a driver's license we have freedom to drive but we have to implicitly follow the traffic rules otherwise we may get into accident, that is, our freedom will degenerate into licentiousness. This is exactly why the scriptures and religion talk about do's and don'ts regarding human behavior. Humans have freedom to act, but if we don't exercise this freedom with restraint and following certain values it can lead to licentiousness and lead to our personality deterioration. Let's consider another common example - we may have freedom to eat sweet, but if we keep eating without any control, due to law of diminishing returns our happiness decreases, after some time we develop aversion towards that particular sweet and this behavior can eventually lead to health problems.
5. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said that our minds are like vulture. Even though a vulture flies high in the sky its vision is always fixed on dead bodies on the ground. Similarly our mind like a vulture is fixed on lower baser things. We need culture to fly high. Living our life based on noble values is most important aspect of culture. Texture of our thoughts makes us smooth like silk or rough like a jute fabric.
6. Materialist follows materialistic culture or bhauthika samskrti. Such people believe or give validity to only things that are perceived. As opposed to this, spiritual culture or adhyatmika culture is based on the fact that sense perception is not the only means of knowing what is real. What is unseen is given more importance in spiritual culture. Materialistic person wants to conquer and make use of nature while a spiritually oriented person will try to understand and live in harmony with nature.
7. Once a young man asked the Leo Tolstoy why should I groom myself? Leo Tolstoy showed him a piece of iron and asked him how much he can fetch from the iron piece? The boy replied maybe a dollar. What if you make needle out of the iron piece - then we might make few dollars. If you make fine wheels which can be used in subtle instruments - then we can make few hundred dollars. So Leo Tolstoy asked the boy whether he wanted to be a piece of iron or become a wheel in a fine instrument. To increase our value and to be successful it is important that we refine our thoughts and groom ourselves-implying we imbibe and follow noble values.
8. We asked each student as to why they want to go to college – all of them discussed different goals they want to pursue post-graduation. But the immediate goal of going to college is to graduate from the college. Similarly we asked him about what is goal of human life? Again varied responses we obtained. We explained according to our scriptures the ultimate goal of human life is to graduate from Earth - meaning we attain liberation or moksha. This will lead us to be free from all pains associated with life and to permanent happiness. Our culture gives us a roadmap so that we can reach the goal to graduate from earth.
Class was concluded with Arathi and pledge.
Pranam,
Rukmani
Devender
