Hari OM Everyone,
We haven't been in touch since the Inaugural Assembly late October. Apologize for the delay. We had 2 classes in Nov and one in Dec so far. In all classes we start with the three OMs, followed by Sahana Vavatu and Vakratunda Mahakaya. While we are waiting for kids to join we encourage them to write Likhita Japa in their notebook - Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaaya. Then we do the Daily Prayers - children have become more familiar and chant with confidence now. Everyone gets to lead one. Last class when we were doing the Kara charana krutam and asked where else they had heard the word Kshamasva - Sai Jahnavi remembered that we do that in the Samudra vasane Devi (the 2nd one in the Daily Prayers) - then we discussed how Kshama means forgiveness and in the last Shloka we are asking for forgiveness for any mistakes that we do during the day. Tejas then had a question what if we didn't do any mistakes at all during the day - then we talked about how we unknowingly hurt others without even realizing it and how in this Shloka we ask for forgiveness even for that! Sai Jahnavi then remembered another Shloka with the work 'Kshama' - the 'yadakshara pada brshtam maatraa heenam' where we ask for forgiveness for any mistakes we have done while chanting!
We have also been learning the English version of "Madhurashtakam" - kids just love this Bhajan and are eager to lead! They all sing so sweetly!
Last two weeks we have also been learning the Sanskrit version of it - we have covered two stanzas so far..since it is the same tune, they are able to sing it on their own. We just have to help them with the transliteration a little bit.
We covered the Varaha avatar in the first class - including how Jaya and Vijaya, the door keepers in Vaikunta were cursed by the Sanat kumaras to be born as Asuras. We talked about Diti's mistake in approaching Kashyapa Muni at an inappropriate time and how because of that she had to give birth to 2 Asura kids Hiranyaaksha and Hiranyakashipu. But because she repented her mistake, the Lord Himself would come to redeem them. And also how a great devotee (Prahlad ji) will be born in their lineage.
Brahma ji creates the first man and woman - Manu and Satarupa and asks them to go and procreate but the Earth is hidden under the Oceans by Hiranyaksha - Lord Vishnu then takes the form of a boar (Varaha) and emerges from Brahma ji's nostrils and then becomes huge and fights and kills Hiranyaksha and saves the Earth.
The last two weeks we have been discussing the story of Hiranyakashipu and how he wanted to take revenge on Lord Vishnu for killing his brother. He decides to do severe Tapas (we tried to remind the children about the four legs of the Bull Dharma that we talked about in the beginning - one of which is Austerity or Tapas) to please Brahma and gain the boon of immortality. Indra sees that as an opportunity to kidnap Hiranyakashipu's pregnant wife Kayadhu so he can destroy his son but Narada Muni stops him and takes Kayadhu to his Ashram where Prahlada is born. Brahma ji is pleased with Hiranyakashipu and grants him a boon - Hiranyakashipu tries to be clever and asks that he will not be killed by any being created by Brahma ji and neither on earth or in the sky, neither inside or outside, neither in the morning or night and not be killed by any weapon. He then conquers all the three worlds and terrorizes the entire world and prevents people from worshipping anyone except him. But to Hiranyakashipu's great disappointment his son Prahlada turns out to be a great devotee of Lord Vishnu and despite his many attempts to try to change him by sending him to the Gurukula etc fails. Instead Prahlada converts even his classmates (we discussed how that was probably the very first Balavihar :-) - Hiranyakashipu then tries to kill Prahlada in several ways but Prahlada is protected by Lord Vishnu everytime frustrating him even further - we talked about how Prahlada's Gurus Chanda and Amarka created something like a dementor to kill him - the entire class was excited to hear the Harry Potter reference :-) and there were talks about how Harry Potter would have just used his magic wand and a spell - then we discussed what Prahlada's magic spell was (Om Namo Narayanaaya) - Lord Vishnu sends His Sudarshan Chakra to kill that creature and it kills the Gurus as well. Then Prahlada prays to Vishnu and the Gurus are restored to life. Finally Hiranyakashipu asks Prahlada where he gets this much power and Prahlada says your power and mine are all derived only from Lord Vishnu and He is everywhere - then Hiranyakashipu points to a pillar and asks if Vishnu is in there and Prahlada says Yes without doubt. Hiranyakashipu takes his mace and hits the pillar and Lord Vishnu jumps out of the pillar in the form of Half Lion and Half man and kills Hiranyakashipu at dusk in the threshold of the house holding him on his lap and kills him with his claws (without a weapon) ! Aditya then pointed out that we had made a mistake when we described Hiranyakashipu's boon!! We had said he can't be killed with or without a weapon! :-) Glad to discover that the kids are paying attention! Good job Aditya!
Last week we watched snippets from the old movie - Bhakta Prahlada as a recap. Even though it was in Tamil and Telugu, the costumes and the settings were fascinating to the children. Some of them loved it and wanted to watch the whole movie. If you have the time this winter break please watch with the children - there are Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi versions available on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bhakta+prahlada+full+movie
The children were excited to see the climax when Narasimha appears from the pillar! But they were a bit disappointed that the Holika story wasn't there!
We then played a game - Chase the Maze and reviewed everything done in the last 3 weeks. Children loved it and tried to get the first spot in the leaderboard! You can encourage them to play it at home as well. Here's the link - https://wordwall.net/play/8377/135/952
We have been learning to chant the Geeta Chapter 2 - last 3 weeks we have been trying to record them chanting as well. So far we have recorded 4 verses - we tried recording verse 5 past week but ran out of time. We will do it next week. Here is Swamiji's video of verses 5 and 6 for the kids to practice at home. https://youtu.be/JhFJXjzJcMg
Also here is a jamboard version with words split up so it is easier for them to read - https://jamboard.google.com/d/1zsUDlwBNHC9Bo6rt6GXT06NHz13E8E46S9iwiW_9plA/edit?usp=sharing - the letters underlined in yellow - the 'Sh' has to be pronounced as in 'Shut' and the letters underlined in red it has to be pronounced as in 'Sugar' - we went over this in class as well.
Some of the kids were very interested to know who was leading in the House Contests now and how they can earn more points to help our House Arjuna's Arrows. Bajrangi's Bolts are leading currently with 3216 points and Arjuna's Arrows are in second place with 2647 points. Best ways to earn points are by writing Likhita Japa - every 10 pages you can take pics and send to bvhouses@chinmayavrindavan.org for 50 points. We have the Storytelling competition coming up on Jan 16. They can earn 50-75 points. They can participate in the Shlokathon - everyone gets 25 points and depending on the level of Shlokas chanted they can get up to 100 points for each shloka chanted from memory. A lot of them in our class are very good Artists - they shared their beautiful paintings and drawings on zoom with us - they can submit their best works for the Art fundraiser this year. Artists among parents can also submit their artwork this year! But sorry no points for them :-) Those who have memorized the Geeta, can record and send videos of every 4 shlokas to cnjbalaviharhouses@gmail.com to earn 50 points. Please encourage them to participate in all these.
We look forward to seeing all of them again next Friday 18 Dec. We have two weeks of break after that!
Thanks & Regards
Jayashree & Suja
Jayashree & Suja
