Wherever our focus is, that is what we notice. We discussed how a person from a village was able to hear crickets chirping while he was walking down a noisy, crowded, traffic prone Manhattan street with his city cousin. When the city cousin didn't believe him, he dug into his pocket, pulled out a handful of change and dropped the coins on the sidewalk just to see dozens of heads turn to look and check their pockets!
We discussed that many times we search for answers everywhere and sort of don't look within or forget to search internally and when we do, we slowly begin to realise that answers are within us, like the art collector that we talked about,
When the mind is quiet, when the mind and intellect are tuned, sharpened, there are no more agitations which keep us away from the Lord within. We feel bliss, happy.
When we grab more than what we can handle in the world, we may have to lose our life. Wrong habits, when we pursue and encourage, they become giant like the big fish and can cost our life!
When we become quiet, our subjective and objective minds become united and we spontaneously function as the instrument of the Lord, following his command. If we want to be happy we have no choice but to sharpen our instruments so that we can do the right actions and we gain the right results. We had some very interesting discussions that made us all put our thinking caps on,
We asked the kids if they knew what a Boomerang was. They all did. They knew the physics of it and pretty much knew what was gonna be discussed right after the word "boomerang" was said. We have a very smart and engaged group of kids who are always ready to participate and question and engage in discussion.
The law is what goes around comes around. As you sow, so shall you reap is the "boomerang effect."
Life is a boomerang. What we do in life alone returns to us in the form of results; our actions are the cause and the result of the actions performed is the effect. If we are kind, the world will be kind to us.
Lord Rama says, "If you want to succeed, follow values in life."
"Boomerang - if we dont change our behavior, like a boomerang, it will come back to us.
Eg. - 'What we sow is what we reap'; 'what goes around comes around'
We discussed various scenarios where the kids may have compromised or felt like compromising values. We talked about what was inside of you that made them compromise or not compromise, It was a discussion that most kids had their hands raised and wanted to speak up! Unfortunately we had to cut it short to be able to jump to our next topic. Please take some time to discuss with your kids what we talk about during class.
Ramayana
After a brief recap of where we are in the Ramayana, we continued the story with our focus on Bharata. On Dasharatha's passing, the ministers and counselors sent a messenger to quickly bring back Bharata and Shatrughna from their maternal grandfather's kingdom. Meanwhile, in his grandfather's palace, Bharata had a bad dream that portended bad omens. On the way to Ayodhya, Bharata and Shatrughna felt something was wrong as no one welcomed them gladly. He rushed to the palace to see his father, but saw only Kaikeyi. She told him that Dasharatha died out of sorrow at being parted from Rama, Lakshmana and Sita. On further questioning by Bharata, she casually mentioned her thoughtless boons and asked him to accept the crown of Ayodhya. Bharata was enraged. He ran to Kousalya - and she was also initially upset with him. But seeing his sincere regret for Kaikeyi's actions, she understood his good character and devotion to Rama. Bharata and Shatrughna completed the final rites for Dasharatha and then Bharata immediately set about preparing a retinue to find Rama and bring him back to Ayodhya. All the courtiers blessed Bharata for his purity of thought and action and gladly set out with him to restore the kingdom to Rama. We discussed Bharata's emotional turmoil of finding out not only that his beloved father had passed away but that his mother had been behind the whole chain of events that had led up to his demise. We will get into a more detailed discussion during our next class.
We followed along with Swamiji and learnt to chant verses 6 and 7 of chapter 5 in the Gita. Please have the kids listen to chapter 5 and practice at home.
Please have the kids continue Rama Nama likhita japa. They can write their names, grade and session their papers and drop them off in the lobby drop box during the yagna.
We joined the rest of BalaVihar in the prayer hall for Arati and Pledge.
Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. We will not have BalaVihar next week and the following week. Please register and join us for the Surabhi with Swami Shanthananda ji's Sampoorna Ramayana Yagna and Swaminatha Bhagavathar's Sri Radha Kalyana Mahotsavam.
Our next class will be on Sunday, December 15th.
With warm regards,
Rahul & Keerthi
