Hari Om Parents,
The sequence and summary of today's class are as follows:
-Opening prayers and Om chanting
-Dashavatara sthotram practice
-Recap of previous class.
-Story - King Rantideva
King Ranti Deva was a noble King, very generous and always cared about the welfare of his people. He saw Lord Vishnu in everyone, and by helping people he thought that he was serving the Lord. Once a famine hit his kingdom. Crops failed, cattle were dying and people were starving. Ranti Deva did his best to help people, to the point that he had nothing left with him, and was even unable to feed his own family. He still kept his faith in the Lord intact. King Rantideva gave away all he had, and had to go without food for forty eight days. One day someone gave him a bowl of porridge. Rantideva, who was extremely weak and could not even move, sat down to eat that porridge. But even that porridge he distributed to the needy people who came to him for help. He was about to drink a little water, but had to give even that away to another person who was in a very bad state. Even in that position, he was able to see the Lord in everyone. He prayed to God to bless him with the capacity to feel the pain of others and power to help them. As he quenched the thirst of the needy person, he suddenly felt his own thirst, hunger and fatigue fading away. Maya then appeared before him and offered to bless him with all the world's riches, but Rantideva chose to stay at the Lord's feet , and he was indeed blessed by the Lord.
We discussed how even in a terrible situation, Rantideva did not pray for anything for himself, but prayed only for the capacity to understand others' pain and to help them. We can understand others' pain only by stepping into their shoes. As we develop this understanding, we become more compassionate towards everyone.
Story - King Vipaschita
King Vipaschita was another great and generous king, who was more like a saint. After his death, angels came to take him to heaven. However he had an unusual request. He wanted to see how people were suffering in hell. When he entered hell, he found all the people there smiling and happy. They ran to greet him and some had tears of joy. The King was surprised and asked the angels if it was really hell. The angels replied that it was indeed hell, and there was a lot of suffering, but just because of the King's presence, people around him were joyful. King Vipaschita decides to stay back there.
In connection with this story, we discussed the importance of spreading joy and cheer to everyone and the ways we can do that.
Dashavataras
The last chapter is a summary of the Dashavatars. We learnt about the first five avatars, Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimha and Vamana this year. We did a quick recap of those five, and gave a brief introduction to the next five avatars.
Wordwall games - The kids enjoyed playing some games on word wall. Today's theme was the Dashavataras.
Dashavatara mobile craft - We started the craft in class today and will complete it in our last class on June 6th. In the meantime the kids can continue coloring and cutting out the pictures. The kids would need a couple of simple things for the craft. Will whatsapp to you all closer to the class.
Kids' presentation - It has been a very interesting year and we really enjoyed teaching and interacting with your kids ! The kids have also shown a lot of interest and enthusiasm in the lessons. We are planning to conclude our classes this year with an interactive session.
We discussed this in class today. We asked the kids to pick any character or story from all the lessons we did during the year and present it to us. They can be as creative as they can get with the presentations. It could be narrating the story, doing a google presentation, drawing or craft. Please help the kids prepare for the presentation. It will be a nice recap of the lessons and we would love to hear the kids talk about them.
We concluded today's class with pledge.
Have a happy Memorial day weekend!
We look forward to seeing the kids on June 6th.
Pranaam,
Vasudha & Neelima
