Dear parent,
Last class we talked about Sanatana (normally called Hinduism). This week we talked about culture. We saw a video that showed images of rituals, dances, music, food and places(temples) from around the world. Some questions we discussed:
- What images did you see?
- What do you connect with the most
- What do these images represent?
- What do the foods, dances & music represent?
- Why are these rituals or dances important?
- When all the other people celebrate their culture, can we not celebrate our culture too?
We went over the definition of culture given by Swami Chinmayanand - "When a group of people live together for a long time in a particular geographical area, living [a] certain value, the special fragrance that emanates from that group is said to be their culture". Are Religion & Culture the same things or different? Will a common religion mean the same culture OR a common culture mean the same religion? We then talked about culture vs civilization and reviewed the quote by Swami Chinmayanand - "Man's control of external nature is called Civilization…His control of the internal nature is called Culture." Our society focuses on developing external nature but we should spend time on bettering our internal nature or culture. The sanskrit word for culture is 'Sanskriti'.
So, what we are going to cover this year would be "Sanatana Sanskriti" ( Hindu Culture).
Culture is a result of our collective internal nature and culture also influences our internal nature. Normal nature is called "Prakriti'. And abnormal nature is "Vikriti". We had long discussions about habits that we force on ourselves that are "Vikritis". These could be wrong eating habits, bad influences, vulgar lyrics in latest music. Animals and lower order beings seem to conform to Prakriti naturally. Sometimes, it is the human will that can degrade us and get us to become Vikritis.
Our class sang the aarti and the pledge. Class is engaging and comes up with good ideas. Hoping for a continued exciting year.
Please follow the updates in https://cmnjparentportal24-25.blogspot.com/search/label/Gr%209%20-%20Sunday%20AM.
regards,
Seetaram Kuchibotla
Partha Turaga
