Dear Parents,
Hari Om!
Today our class buzzed with enthusiasm. We opened up by having our students share things that they were excited about during their week. After a few minutes, we then asked them to quiet their minds and engage in a deep breathing exercise to energize their cells and to help them focus on their learning.
The chanting of OM 3 times, and daily prayers including: Sahanaavavatu, Vakarathunda, Karaagre vasate Lakshmi, Saraswati namastubhyam, Gurubrahma, Brahmaarpanam, Shubhamkaroti, Kara-charana were done. A brief interaction with the students followed on when and why we do these prayers during the day, just as we have been explaining to them in the past two classes. Then we chanted the Ramayana Dhyaana slokah
"Neelambuja shyamala komalaangam" (page 129 of My Prayers green book).
Next, the class interpreted this quote:
"Daily prayer and mediation are all wonderful therapeutic agencies in building up peace and happiness within an individual"
—Swami Chinmayananda
Through prayer and meditation, we can restore calmness of the mind, and have the opportunity to reach our full potential. We become more alive and more engaged with what we need to accomplish as it helps us to think clearly.
Then the question arose: Why do some of us pray in only difficult times?
We remember God only in difficulties and not in happy moments of our life because it is human nature to ask for help. Sometimes we blame God for our crisis. Tough times have hidden value in them, those are really the grace of God, they take us closer to reality, make us humble and we can connect with others well. In good times we succumb to ego quite more than in bad times. It is ideal to use good and bad times with wisdom and not get lost in these positive/negative influences. We are not masters, but we can evolve.
We reminded the students that all things originated from Bhagavan, and that we express gratitude and appreciation for all the things we are blessed with through the prayer.
Then we moved on to sing Prema mudita bhajan that we started, unmuting a student to sing a few verses.
We quickly reviewed theRamayana Bala Kanda that we learned in the last class, and then moved on to explore the next part of it. We narrated to them the 'Sita Swayamvaram'. Later we also watched a beautiful video of Seeta Swayamvaram, we will provide the link in the parents whatsapp group.
Rama, Lakshmana and Vishwamitra headed for Mithila on King's invitation.
On the way Vishwamitra revealed the story of sage Gautama and Ahalya, as they were passing the ashram. On the advice of the sage Rama redeemed Ahalya from the curse by stepping on the stone, and once again the Gautama and his wife were united with the grace of Rama.
Mithila, is the capital city of Videha, was ruled by wise and a great king Janaka, like Dasharatha and they were good friends as well. Once Janaka, ploughing the field before a yaaga, found a beautiful baby girl among the furrows took her as Mother Earth's gift to him, as he was childless, named her as Sita, and brought up as her daughter, As she attained the marriageable age, King Janaka and queen announced throughout the kingdom that a great yaaga, would be held followed by a Swayamvara, where she would be given her to a man who was truly worthy in every respect. Janaka had a bow given to him by Lord Shiva. King Janaka's daughter Sita had once picked up the bow with ease and King Janaka saw that. It was big, heavy, and only an outstanding man could lift it. At once, he took the vow about Sita's wedding. As sage Vishwamitra arrived Mythila with Rama and Lakshmana they were received with due honors, and were told about Swayamvara, after the great yaaga. Janaka said he would be the happiest person if Rama strings the bow.
The next day, Kings, Princes, noblemen and brave warriors from all over the world came to take part in the ceremony that king Janaka had arranged, none could lift the bow. At last, Rama on Sage Vishwamitra's gesture and blessing, came forward and picked up the bow with his left hand up, easily put the string on and pulled it so hard that the bow broke into two. Sita was very happy and garlanded Rama, as Janaka and the queen overjoyed.
It was smooth, till a great storm broke out in the form of Parashuramama.
He was a great warrior, confronted Rama and challenged him to string the bow, given to him by Lord Vishnu. Sage Parashurama, was a brahmin, who vowed to slay all Kshatriya kings to avenge his father's death. Rama strung his bow effortlessly, fitted an arrow and aimed the arrow in the direction, Parashurama pointed. Proud Parashurama left for the Himalayas to continue his tapas.
King Dasharatha was informed, on an auspicious day the royal weddings took place. Rama was married to Sita, Lakshmana to Urmila, Sita's sister. Bharata and Shatrughana were married to Mandavi and Shrutikirti, the daughters of Kushadhwaja, the brother of king Janaka. We had to pause the story here to watch the video of Seeta swayamvaram.
Then we proceeded to learn Bhagavad Geeta chapter 2. They were given a brief summary of the Chapter 1 & 2, before they began to chant.
In chapter 1, A panoramic View of the Kurukshetra battlefield was displayed. Arjuna had to choose between fighting the war and killing his most revered guru, who was on the other side; his very dear friends, close relatives, and many innocent warriors; or running away from the battlefield to be peaceful and nonviolent. He was overwhelmed with grief and confused about his duty, his justification for not fighting the war was depicted.
In chapter 2, Arjuna becomes his disciple and surrenders to Lord, and requests his counsel. Krishna begins his teachings to Arjuna by explaining the fundamental distinction between the temporary material body and the eternal spiritual soul. Lord Krishna lays forth several reasons as to why Arjuna should not grieve and instructs him to stand up and fight the battle of Dharma. This chapter enables us to look at life as a whole.
We then learned the first two verses from Geeta with Swamiji's video. We encouraged them to repeat along with it and then asked a student to unmute and chant the verse looking at the text. to chant on their own. If they keep practicing from now they will be able to memorize, and be ready for the Geeta chanting Yajna in April next year. Here is the recording for you to help them practice - https://youtu.be/-d4EIe2V-Vc
After we completed narrating the story and some analysis of the characters, we played a wheel game - brain breaks - we spun a wheel to decide what activity to do - the spin board had things like do Super Brain Yoga 5 times, Spin around 5 times, Do the Tree pose for 3 secs etc. We also included some eye exercises such as trace OM with your eyes. Students were asked a few questions related to Balakanda of Ramayana to recollect the characters and episodes that have been discussed in the last class. Once they answered, they got to do an activity listed on the wheel. Students participated and enjoyed the wheel game.
We winded up our class with Aarti and pledge.
Stay tuned, until next.
Pranaams,
Grade 7 PM
