Dear Parents,
Harih Om!
The following material was taught during Balavihar class on Sunday, May 16, 2021
Beginning Prayers
Chanted the six verses of Tapovan Shatakam
We continued with the values taught by Sri Krishna in Chapter XII of Bhagavad Gita, where He enumerates 35 virtues or gems for us to live by. Bhagawan says he is showing us these gems so that we can make use of them and be happy. He says "anyone who lives by these virtues is My darling". So far following values have been covered Gem 1 – Hate None (advesta sarvabhutanam): Gem 2 – Be Friendly; Maitrah; Gem 3 – Be Compassionate; Karunah; Gem 4 – Free from attachment, Nirmamah; Gem 5 – Free from ego, Nirahamkarah. We began with Gem 6 and explained upto Gem 11.
4. We began class by recalling what we had learned and discussed the previous week. Two important facts have to be re-iterated: one must have faith in oneself and also have faith in sastras and faith in God / Guru. Secondly, our mind becomes confused and turbulent due to excessive regrets of past, too much anxiety about the present and uncontrolled fears of the future. These three things should be avoided as they prevent our mind from being laser sharp.
Gem 6 - Equal minded in pleasure and pain; samaduhkhahsukhah.
One needs to be balanced in our responses to various situations we encounter in our daily lives. Balanced mind does not mean living like a statute. We become when we get things that we desire or if people are to our liking. We are unhappy when we get does not meet our expectations. What we need to realize is that extreme likes and dislikes make will make us unhappy. For example, I must sit in my favorite dining chair to eat my food, I must eat pizza every Friday that to only from Pizza Hut, I cannot eat pizza without Coke or I get upset if I do not see get to see my favorite TV show. Instead, we should have a balanced attitude to life. Likes and dislikes depend upon how we were brought up, our background and the environment where we live, and work. When we put finger in ice water for a few minutes and then put the same finger in warm water it will feel extremely hot. When the finger is put in lukewarm water, then put in warm water the water will not feel that hot. Our likes and dislikes are conditioned both by circumstances and environment. We discussed the movie "Gods must be Crazy", in which all tribal people fight for a coke bottle that was accidentally dropped in their village from the plane. Since the villagers had never seen a Coke bottle before, they thought that it was a gift from God and must be revered. But ultimately the peace and tranquility of the village got destroyed as everyone wanted to possess the coke bottle with "special powers." Finally, the tribal chief threw the bottle away and once again peace returns to the village. As we will stop chasing what we like and running away from what we don't like. Everything in the world is constantly changing. If we come across challenges and difficult situations we should constantly keep the thought "this too shall pass" in our mind.
Gem 7 - Forgive, Ksami.
God is all forgiving. All we need to do is pray and ask for his forgiveness; He immediately responds. There are numerous stories in our Puranas which show the extreme kindness of the Lord. For example in the Ramayana, Lord Rama did not entertain any harmful thoughts towards mother Kaikeyi despite the fact that she was responsible for Him to be banished to the forest for fourteen years. Similarly, in the Mahabharata Yudhisthira too was also very kind and forgiving towards Dhritharastra and Gandhari after the war and treated them with love and respect. Similarly, when Jesus was being crucified he prayed to God to forgive these people as they did not know what they were doing. Pujya Gurudev gives example of sandalwood which gives perfume to the very axe that brings the sandalwood tree down. The more we rub Sandalwood on the stone the more fragrance it produces. Such is the beauty of forgiveness and life. Once a holy man was invited to a town to judge wrong doers to see what punishment they can be given. The holy man entered the town dragging behind a sack filled with sand and full of holes! People questioned the holy man as to why he was carrying the bag with sand trailing behind him. The man replied that just like the sand his sins too were trailing behind him and he did not see himself fit to judge others. Just as we forgive and overlook our own sins, we should learn to forgive others. When we forgive people, it is we who benefit more than the person whom we have forgiven. A lot of times people say they have forgiven a person, but every time they meet the person they will remind him/her about the incident. Forgiving somebody despite the harm or ill that they have done to us is what we should strive for. We should forgive everyone without exception. Forgiveness should be complete. "To err is human, to forgive is divine." – Alexander Pope. "It is by forgiving that one is forgiven." – Mother Theresa.
Gem 8:To Be Ever Content, Santushtah Satatam "happiness and being ok with what you have." After telling them they were correct in their definitions, we spoke about the linear path that money and greediness puts you on. Essentially, it is how the want for more money drives everything some people do and how once we are greedy it is hard to escape that. To keep the session interactive we asked the students to name some of the wealthiest people they could think of along with the greatest sports stars of all time. Although they answered the questions it took them some time to come up with the names. We then asked them a second set of questions and asked them to think about the answers mentally and raise their hands when they thought of someone. The questions were: think about a teacher who has helped you, think about a role model who you look up to, think about someone you can trust wholeheartedly. Students took just a few seconds to raise their hands and we asked them why they thought answering the second set of questions was much easier. They responded by saying that it was because they interact with these people often and think about them in tough times. We reminded them that these people that they thought about in the second set of questions are those whom we remembered instantaneously and who care for us regardless of our wealth or power. Before discussing a story we asked them to think about this statement: let us be content with power, prosperity, and position but also be the ones who care.
We then told the following story:
Once, two mules were going with their masters. One was loaded with oats as his master was a farmer; the other was loaded with gold coins as the master was a banker. Both were on the same path travelling from one village to another. The mule carrying the gold coins was trotting with full pride as he was aware of the value of the gold coins he was carrying compared to the oats of the other mule. Half the way, they met with robbers who heard the clicking noise of the coins on the mule's back. They beat the mule with sticks and stole the gold coins. The other mule felt sorry and said "being rich is important, but it also has its drawbacks." We reminded the students that being rich isn't everything and essentially has its drawbacks.
Gem 9 which is "Steadfast in Meditation." We started the conversation by laying the fundamentals through the discussion of some key words. We talked about who a Yogi is and what having Laser focus means. We told the children that their minds are like a river and they are controlled by memories of the past, fears of the future, anxieties of the present... all of these cause flooding of the mind. Through yoga and meditation, the goal is to have no vasanas (disturbances within oneself) and we discussed how to meditate briefly as well.
Gem 10: Self-controlled, yatatma
Yatatama is the need to have control over the mind which was also explained as yoga. Normally our mind is in a state of constant agitation, it can be compared to a river which is rushing uncontrollably down the mountain without restraint. Just as it is difficult to control a river which is in flood it is also difficult to control your mind which is gurgling with many thoughts. It was explained to the student that the state of flood in our mind is contributed by three main streams which are memories of the past, fears of the future and anxieties of the present. Unnecessary regrets of our past mistake impede us from doing what we need to do now, also over anxiety while performing our activities in the present and excessive fear of future should be avoided. When we can achieve this to some extent - the flood of thoughts in our mind calms down, then it is easier to control the mind. We can build a dam across the 'calmer river'; this dam is built by following right values. We can also imagine that these three portals - regrets of the past, anxieties of the present and worries about future - are the three dissipating channels by which the energy of the mind is dissipated. When we plug these dissipating channels, we can conserve our mental energies. Mind can be made focused and single pointed. Controlling mind is not easy but will come through practice and patience. This can be facilitated by various means including prayer, study and reflection on our sastras, surrendering to God and devotion, japa and of course by meditation. Thus yoga - the integration of our personality can be achieved by detaching ourselves from the lower and attaching ourselves to higher ideals namely the Lord.
We had a discussion about why self control is beneficial. It was reminded that freedom comes with responsibilities. Unless self-control and discipline is followed one cannot achieve anything productive in this life. Pujya Gurudev has said without self-discipline, concentration, and total dedication one cannot grow and shine forth. We have seen numerous examples in our own lives of people practicing for many years to perfect themselves in their own specific professions, for example a musician or a dancer or painter probably had put in many hours and years of hard work before they achieve success and recognition. Professional athletes are an excellent example that illustrates the result of dedication, hard work and concentration. Without having self-discipline and self-control we will not achieve anything meaningful in our life. Even when we look at the word discipline and add all the numbers of the alphabet - that is D represents the fourth alphabet; I represents the ninth alphabet; S represents the 19th letter of the alphabet so on so forth the total of all alphabets in discipline adds up to 100%!!! The word itself is showing that we need to put in hundred percent discipline to achieve our goals. As Pujya Gurudev says one who has subjected himself to discipline is a disciple.
Gem 11: Firm conviction, drdhaniscayah
Firm conviction or resolve means having steadfastness, determination to make up one's mind. When we know value of anything then we make a resolve to get it. Students were asked if they wanted $100 note everybody said they would like to have it. When we said that the hundred dollars note was all crumpled up, still they wanted it, this is because they knew the value of hundred dollars. Similarly, only when we value something we can make a resolve to achieve it. Belief born out of understanding is faith. We also explained that there are many definitions or explanations possible for this word faith or sraddha, it has been said that there is no good meaning available in English language to explain all the deeper imports of sraddha or loosely translated as faith. It was emphasized to the students that they should have faith in three factors - faith in our sastras, faith in God/Guru and faith in oneself. Just because we cannot see God we cannot conclude that He is not present. There are many things that we cannot see but can experience. Even though science says that the Earth is round and moving all the time we perceive the Earth to be stationary. But when seen through the eyes of science we understand that the Earth is moving all the time. Similarly, we need a special 'mirror' to be able to see God, the mirror is the purified mind. We achieve this purification by following the teachings of our sastras. When you watch a movie we don't see the screen, but without the screen the movie cannot play, similarly without God the world cannot exist. Our inability to recognize him is because of our agitations and impurities in our mind. Pujya Gurudev said that the pilgrimage leading to the temple of truth is not easy one may have to go through dangerous forests, dark never-ending tunnels or precipitous slopes. On this pilgrimage we may experience despondence, despair, and hopelessness. Hence, we need to have unlimited exchequer of power and strength, and this exchequer of infinite strength is called faith. Most of the time we are so busy with our life that we do not acknowledge God for what He has given us, but when we need something from Him, then we remember to pray to Him. In fact, what we are doing is not 'praying' but we are 'preying' on God. All we need to do is just to look around in the nature or even analyze how miraculous this human body works, how the heart pumps blood continuously without a break to understand the greatness of the Lord. He is the one who is running the show of the world and making our body function seamlessly. We are too busy playing with his toys that we fail to recognize and acknowledge them. We forget the Giver!
Story - one night a family woke up from sleep detecting smoke and fire in their house. Frantically the father grabbed the one-year-old and a five-year-old and started running out. The five-year-old remembered that he had left his favorite teddy bear in the bedroom, so he let go of his father and ran back to the bedroom. In the anxiety and confusion father did not realize that the five-year old son had let go of his hand. Once he got out of the home, the father realized that his other child was still in the house. By now the fire had worsened and this prevented the father from going in. The father then heard his older son shouting from the bedroom window asking for help. There was lot of smoke. The father could see the son and asked him to jump from the window. Unfortunately, son could not see him because of all the smoke, so he hesitated. The father assured the son that he would catch him and to trust him and jump. The son had implicit faith in his father and he jumped at his father's behest and was rescued. The son had implicit faith in his father. Similarly, we should put all our effort, hard work and dedication to the work at hand and have complete faith in the Lord!
Pranaams,
Sitaram Kutchibhotla
And Mekhala Girish (Grade 8 Sunday AM Sevaks)
