Hari Om! Parents,
Today we commenced the class with Aditya Hridayam. This is an important shloka taught to Lord Rama by Sage Agastya in preparation for battle against Ravana. So you can understand what a powerful protection shloka it is. Swamiji wants to ensure our JCHYKs learn to chant it before they head out to college. The English transliteration can be found here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/133s7qsXKo9p-p1civAk1dYwgThMTW8Ga/view?usp=sharing. We will be teaching two verses every week and practicing for the rest of the year.
We completed Chapter 14 (The Three Gunas) discussion including tuning the mind and transcending it. Students shared examples of people in our current world who appear to operate primarily from Sattva Guna including Warren Buffet and Chuck Feeney - the billionaire who wanted to die broke by supporting valuable social causes. These are role models who were driven to succeed in their chosen fields but always acted with integrity, and took seriously the responsibility to give back to society in a big way. There are many such folk who are not billionaires, or on the news that we encounter every day - from dedicated teachers to EMTs to nurses. We owe them our gratitude, and a commitment to serve selflessly in any way we can. This will in turn increase our Sattva Guna. The details of our class can be found here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dhm3xqH9JXIN9ZHjnOecg4qrL6xaThXm/view?usp=sharing
Next week we have planned a debate for the class that will help us review some of the important Gita concepts covered thus far.
Thank you,
Aruna and Sirisha
