Hari OM
Prayer time:
We started our class with our opening prayers "Sahanaavathu" followed by Vakrathunda Mahakaya, Saraswathi Namsthubhyam, Guru Brahma, and Buddhir balam.
Bhagvatham Time:
Quick recap-
King Bharata
Story Time:
Ajamila
Today we heard the story of Ajamila. He was a Brahmin youth who was well versed in the Vedas. He was a very honest and truthful man. He was married to a good Brahmin girl and was leading a happy and contented life. One day, Ajamila went to the forest to collect some flowers, fruits and some wood for his worship and there he met a young woman with bad habits. He fell in love with her and went to live with the lady forgetting his existing wife and kids. Ajamila was a good man with a pure man but now in the company of his new wife, he gave up all his good thoughts of God and worship and led a bad life. Slowly there came a time when he did not have enough and slowly started to cheat people and thus managed to keep his wife and children happy. His youngest son, who was his favorite, was named Narayana. When Ajamila was about to die, his youngest son was playing a little distance away from him. Suddenly, he saw two fierce-looking messengers of Yama (Lord Death) appeared at his bedside, armed with clubs and axes. They had come to drag his soul away from his body. Ajamila got terrified and shouted for his son, Narayana. While he called for his son his mind unconsciously remembered the Lord. Just then two attendants of Maha Vishnu appeared and saved him from the yama doothas. He who loves God and completely and surrenders himself is, no matter how bad his deeds are will be saved by the Lord. Ajamila understood his mistakes and he left his wife and children and went to meditate on the Lord.
Brainstorming:
Bad company ruins one's life and good company saves one. We also learned even if we make mistakes, repenting for such an act is Self-knowledge. Good company saves us; bad company ruins your life.
Vinobhaji
To understand more about the moral, we told story about Vinobhaji. Please ask kids to retell this story that they heard in class.
Indra and Vritasura
Lord Indra is the king of the Devas. But Lord Indra often gives way to anger, pride, arrogance, envy just like any man and this gets him into more trouble.
One day Indra was sitting on his throne and was all puffed up with pride and arrogance. Just then the teacher of the Devas, Brishaspathi walked in but Indra, all filled up with pride, did not get up to receive his teacher. Brihaspathi felt offended by this behavior and left the court. Slowly by the time Indra realized his mistake and went in search of his teacher Brihaspathi made himself invisible from the Devas. Meanwhile the Asuras, understanding that Devas were left without a teacher started attacking the Devas and the Devas had to suffer a lot of defeat and humiliation and really repented for the act that they did to their teacher. All the devas went to Brahmaji for help and suggested to accept Visvaroopa as their teacher. Visvaroopa was a daitya from his mother's side and a deva from his father's side. So when he offered pooja he always used to keep a portion to the daityas too. When Indra came to know of this he became angry and chopped his head off. When Visvaroopa's dad came to know of what the devas did, he became very angry and created a demon, Vritasura and ordered to attack the devas. The Devas became terrified by the demon who was huge and horrifying. The Devas ran to Maha Vishnu for help. Maha Vishnu asked Indra to get the weapon vajra which was made from the bones of Rishi Dadhichi. The Devas did accordingly and thus with the weapon vajra the Devas won the battle with Vritasura. Vritasura though was very powerful could not stand the power of the vajra weapon and got killed in the battle.
Activity:
Kids learnt all 5 verses of Madhurashatakam (English version). They also had so much fun playing the word search game.
With Love,
Indira & Rupali Aunty
