Hari Om! Parents,
We began class with an update on each student's progress towards their 40 day challenge to reduce consumption of, or distraction due to social media. Most children are making strong efforts and seeing positive results already. Adithi made the astute observation that her mood on her social media cheat day was markedly different from the other days, and may have left her feeling a little depressed. Mahika was able to get better sleep on the nights she didn't have the phone in her room before bedtime, it was charging elsewhere in the house. Mira, tracking her screen time, found that keeping her phone away from her while doing HW helps considerably. Now after three weeks of being on the challenge, even if she needs the phone for HW occasionally, she is less tempted to "browse". Advik, having deleted the biggest time killer app - Instagram from his phone, has discovered time to do more productive things. Nitasha has picked up reading for fun - what a wonderful habit to cultivate! Vinayak suggested changing search engines to Qwant or duckduckgo to maintain privacy as well as avoid tailored search results that reinforce our biases. Awareness is key to stay motivated in this challenge, along with mentally cheering ourselves on to develop good life long habits. We are proud of the students for taking this challenge seriously and working at it.
Our curriculum for the class was Chapter 13 Bhagavad Gita - Discrimination of the Knower and the Known. We went deeper into matter and consciousness to understand the terms Kshetram, Kshetragna and Prakrithi, Purusha. Discussion with the children was around the desire for moksha. Why does the Vedanta discussion make it seem like life on earth is undesirable and we have to "escape" from it? In this context students agreed that joys are fleeting and sorrows are inescapable in our lives. So, the revelation from spiritual masters about the incomparable bliss of realization behooves us to investigate this hidden potential within. Like a prisoner being released after decades in confinement is afraid to be out in the uncertain world, we are all caught in this cycle unaware that there is something more. To investigate that is to become a seeker. However, to become a seeker does not mean one has to become a renunciate! Outwardly, there is no apparent change in our interaction with the world. As seekers, the zeal with which we work and achieve is in fact more focused and inspired. The transformation is within. Details of our class can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7eMK-5grc0jo4fuRUsoWHV5bYtv7ZDO/view?usp=sharing
Next week, we will continue discussion of Chapter 13 focusing on the topic of Jnanam, where Krishna extols 20 values that help us grow both in material and spiritual pursuits.
Thank you,
Aruna and Sirisha
