Hari OM! Parents,
We commenced class with starting prayers, followed by meditation on
Chit aspect of the Sat-Chit-Ananda.
We described 'Chit' as the consciousness that is ever present (nityam)
and there is no 'off-switch' for it and it has the quality of
'alwaysness'.
We took them through a guided meditation to abide as the witness to everything.
We then learned verse 4 of Shiva Manasa Pooja.
Meditation is a practice that centers an individual, calms and focuses
the mind, stills the body and fills one's being with light and joy. In
modern times, much scientific evidence is also there to show that
neural activity during meditation reflects a state associated with
happiness without the need to put anything into the body. Swamiji has
always wanted the Balavihar students to know and practice self knowing
and calming techniques left to us by our ancestors and hence the
various methods of watching the breath, focusing on one, two, three
objects, meditation on Sat aspect, Chit aspect etc. All these
techniques will help towards working on calming the restless nature of
our mind.
We tried to recap last week's lesson and found that the class needed
much prompting and many clues to recall. A suggestion is for students
also to read the class review before the next class to recall as many
ideas are developed over the course of a few weeks.
The lesson for the day was the 4 Purusharthas. Dharma, Artha, Kama,
Moksha. Earlier in the year, we had discussed purushartha and
prarabdha. Recalled Gurudev's quote, what we meet in life is destiny
and how we meet what we meet is our self effort/pursuits or
Purushartha. There are four Purushartha or pursuits of human life.
Dharma- so hard to translate into English! Duty, righteousness, role
in life as determined by one's varna, role in life as determined by
one's ashrama. We discussed the 4 ashramas- Brahmacharya, Grihastha,
Vanaprastha, Sannyasa.
Brahmacharya- the first 25 years dedicated to learning and
studentship, requiring discipline
Grihastha- the next 25 years dedicated to building a family,
accumulating wealth and resources and service,
Vanaprastha- the next 25 years dedicated to withdrawal from social
obligations and duties and intensifying spiritual study and practice
Sannyasa- renunciation of all worldly ties, duties, solely for
spiritual pursuit. We talked about the three Shaktis or inherent power
in us iccha, kriya and jnana Shakti in us. These powers helps us to
desire, perform actions and hence leading us to knowledge both in the
material and spiritual world. Channeling our desires and performing
the right actions with the right attitude can help us pursue our short
term and long term goals. The distinction between karma and karma yoga
was discussed. We will continue with this discussion in our next
class.
Dharma provides the framework to practice our understanding of the
Mahavakyas and prevents us from becoming mere parrots(refer to the
story fro last week)
Class conceded early at 8 pm so all of us could perform Paduka Pooja
together to invoke Gurudev's Grace to alleviate Covid related
suffering especially in India now.
Our next Balavihar class is on May 14th.
Pranams
Uma and Nirmala
