Hari Om Parents,
This is the combined summary of the week of Jan 3rd and Jan 10th, 2025.
We started our class by writing Likhitha jaapa (writing the name of any Ishta devata god's name), then followed by daily prayers (Page 11 of My Prayers book). We made children lead prayers and Ganesha Panchratnam for class this week. While kids have become more fluent in reading and reciting, they must memorize it too. We need your help to help your kids memorize the same.
We temporarily paused Mahabhratha and introduced India - The Sacred Land, our second part of the curriculum.
We focused on the ancient names of India, Bharath, Indicus, Hindustan, and others. We focused on the origins of the name "Bharath". While there are many versions of how the name Bharath originated - one of the more popular versions is that it was named after the famous prince Bharath who played with lion cubs at the tender age of three. We told the story of King Dushyant and Shankunthala and birth of Bharath. Bharath the land mass that we know today was much larger just in the early 18th centuary it consisted of modern day afganistan, pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and Srilanka. After Britishers colonized, systematically several parts were broken away, and what remains today is only a fraction of the ancient Indian empire.
We then discussed why India is called a sacred land; very few other places in the world are designated as sacred. The other major place called the holy land is Jerusalem—a holy place for all the Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. India is called a sacred land because it is the land of many holy temples, saints, holy rivers, and holy men like Adi Shankara, Vivekananda, Meera Bai, Tukaram, Tulasidas, Kabir, Buddha, Mahavir Jain. Adi Shankar traveled from Kanya Kumari to Kashmir, east to west, and established the original four Shankar Mutts at Sringeri, Kashi, Dwaraka and Puri. Bharath's villages, towns are home to hundreds of temples, rivers, lakes etc. We shared an interactive website of 100 important temples across length and breadth of Bharath.
https://myoksha.com/temples-in-india-map/
In the subsequent Friday class, we started of with daily prayers, followed by Ganesha pancha ratna stotram. We enquired about the promise kids made in the earlier class to memorize at least 3 slokas of bhagvad gita. It was very disappointing to learn that many forgot about their promise. They recomitted to memorizing the slokas, please help them memorize.
Continuing further on the topic of India the sacred land we touched the topic of pilgrimage or theerth yatra. Major religions have a concept of piligimage pious christians have to vist Jerusalem and Vatican once in their life so do followers of Islam who have to go to Haj in their lifetimes. However for the followers sanatana dharma have multiple places, rivers mountains to perform piligrimage/ theerth yatra. As the sanskrit name theertha yatra literally means jorney to places of theerth - water bodies. Majority of our theerth places are by major rivers like Ganga - Kashi, Prayag Raj, Rishikesh, Haridwar etc, while on th ebanks of Yamuna we have Mathura, Vrindavan, Trayambakeswar on the banks of Godavari, Srisailam on banks of Krihna, Ujjain on the river Narmada and final Srirangam on the banks of Kaveri. Every holy place in our culture is associated with a water body (theerth) where devotees take a dip before visiting the deities in the temple. A philosphical meaning of theerth - that by whose help we cross the ocean of samsara, the cycle of life and death. To that extent besides temples, we have mountains (Kailash) lakes(Maansarovar), forests(Naimisharanyam, Dandakarnyam). A majority of thes eholy places have been consecrated by devatas themselves or great rishis, munis and have significant importance in our lives. We started to discuss the concept of chota char Dhaam, which we will explore further in our next class.
After each of the sessions, It was time for our Gita Chanting by Swami Ji. We learned new slokas 12-16 from chapter 5 and also practiced chanting from 1 to 7 slokas of chapter 5. The 5th grades kids had an opportunity to lead aarathi and pledge and they did a wonderful job performing the aarati and pleade. Kudos to them. Please help your kids memorize ganesha pancha ratna and Bhagvad Gita slokas. We have given below several links for you to help them.
Few Links for learning to chant.
1. Ganesha Panchratnam (Page 30 in My Prayers).
1.1. Link to rendition with lyrics in English https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4lZCKxeJFE or
1.2 Link: https://youtu.be/Oyo0FWP9fB8?si=ZaYVDepNkX0YWShI (play at lower speeds for kids to follow lyrics and hear clearly
2. Nirvana Shatakam (we will handover Printout in January)
2.1 https://youtu.be/rKx7K13OvQ4?si=lM6g_ZtX0kdF5Sfo - Uninterrupted Line Guided Chant - YouTube
3. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 5 (1-29 shlokas) is available in the 2024-25 year handbook. The handbook was given to all kids. If your child doesn't have a handbook please collect it from the book store.
Please make sure to send the below to every Balavihar class.
1. An empty notebook to write Likhitha jaapa and notes.
2. Two sharpened pencils.
3. Daily Prayers book.
4. Balavihar Handbook
Please join the class WhatsApp group by using the link below
https://chat.whatsapp.com/E0cfUe3NUDYCBwYVKD7tyg
The WhatsApp group will be our primary medium of communication. Please feel free to reach us on our phones/ via WhatsApp or you can reply to this email as well.
With Regards,
Anuradha & Shivram
