Hari Om Parents,
The sequence and summary of today's class are as follows
-Opening prayers and Om chanting
-Dashavatara sthotram
-Quick recap of previous lesson
-Today's lesson
Today's main stories - Hiranyakasipu and Prahlada
As today's stories are connected with some of the earlier lessons, we did a brief recap of the stories of Jaya and Vijaya, Sage Kasyapa and Diti, and Hiranyaksha. Jaya and Vijaya were cursed to be born as demons, Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakasipu. Hiranyaksha was killed by Narayana in Varaha avatara. Hiranyakasipu hated Lord Vishnu and wanted to avenge his brother's death. He did intense tapas for Lord Brahma. All the worlds are trembling with the intensity of his tapas. Lord Brahma appears before Hiranyakasipu and grants him a boon. The boon was that he could not be killed by any God, human, animal or weapon, neither in the morning or night, neither indoor or outdoor, neither on the earth or in the sky. Hiranyakasipu becomes all powerful with the boon, and starts troubling everyone in the world. He stops all yagnas and sacrifices and orders everyone to worship only him.. The Devas then approach Lord Vishnu to save them from this tyranny. Lord Vishnu tells them not to worry as he himself will take an avatara to destroy the evil rakshasa.
Many of the kids knew Prahlad's story and were very excited to share with us what they knew. It was quite an interesting and interactive class.
Hiranyakasipu's son is Prahlada, and he has been worshipping Lord Vishnu right from his birth, much to the disappointment and worry of his father. Prahlad is sent to his teachers to learn how to be a perfect daitya, but he is not interested. Whenever he got a chance he sang the glories of Lord Vishnu. The teachers, unable to change him, take Prahlada to his father. Prahlada tells Hiranyakasipu that only Sri Vishnu is the Lord of the universe and should be worshipped. Hiranyakasipu is upset with this and warns the teachers to make sure this does not repeat again. Prahlada does not give up his devotion to the Lord, despite being warned by his father multiple times. Enraged, Hiranyakasipu orders that Prahlada be put to death. The asuras pierce Prahlad with spears, throw him into the ocean, leave him with poisonous snakes, trample him with wild elephants and even put him in fire. Nothing harms Prahlad, who is constantly meditating on the Lord. Hiranyakasipu is furious and frustrated. Prahlada tells him that Lord Vishnu is everywhere in the universe and he alone is the strength of everyone. Hiranyakasipu challenges Prahlada and asks if Lord Vishnu would even be in the pillar in his palace. He hits the pillar with great force. The pillar breaks into two, and out comes a fierce looking Narasimha, The Lord, with the body of a man and head of a lion. He picks up Hiranyakasipu, takes him to the threshold of the house, places him on his lap and kills him with his own claws. The Gods shower flowers on the Lord, happy with the end of evil. Prahlada becomes the King and rules for a very long time and then becomes one with the Lord.
-Likhita japa
-Wordsearch game - The kids played a wordsearch game on wordwall, based on the lessons learnt so far.
-Gita Chanting : Today we learnt shlokas 21 and 22. The link to today's video is Verses 21-22 Ch.2 - YouTube
Please encourage the kids to practice often.
- Arthi and Pledge
We look forward to seeing the kids in the next class.
Pranaam,
Vasudha & Neelima
