Hari Om All,
Here's the update from our last Balavihar class. We had the week off for celebrating Deepavali. After you and your family played with firecrackers or enjoying sweets, hope you discussed what was being celebrated during our festival of lights.
As we returned from a long break in October and our House Inaugural the previous week, we took some time to cover what we had previously learned in Chapter 13 about subjects and objects and their interactions; we perceive our world through five senses and we act upon our perceptions with five organs of action. Our sensory information is processed by and our actions are formulated by our ego (ahamkara), our intellect (buddhi) and our unconscious, unmanifested impulses (avyakta) and all of this is located in one center – the mind (ekam). Now that we know the tools by which we interact with our world, our goal is to move towards spiritual awakening and a higher state of being than merely being consumed by the pleasures and pains of the world. To achieve this we have to cultivate a list of traits which are:
1. Humility
2. Modesty
3. Non-Injury
4. Forgiveness/Patience
5. Uprightness
6. Service to Guru
7. Purity
8. Steadfastness
9. Self-Control
We discussed the first few points of this list – with a particular focus on non-injury which has figure prominently into Indian history and political philosophy as ahimsa. We also looked at the meaning of forgiveness and patience – this is defined as the capacity to suffer without being upset but does this mean to forgive any slight against us? We would ask everyone to take a look at this list and contemplate on their meanings and we would like to hear your perspective during our next session. Do you possess these qualities? If not, which ones do you have to work on? Please think about these and we will see you on the 22nd.
Regards,
Raghav and Rashmi.
