Dear Parents,
To fight the fear to overcome the attachment. Detached mind alone can be fearless. If we overcome any unwanted attachment, the fear is gone.
Hari:Om!
Happy 2025! Hope you all had a restful winter break and were able to spend some quality time with family and friends. We stressed on the importance of family time and taking the winter break as an opportunity to capitalize on it. We shared what we did during our break and then got right into our daily prayers.
Vibhisana Gita- From RamcharitManas by Tulsidas ji. The conversation between Vibhisana who was really concerned and showed compassion on Rama who just stood on the battle ground with just His bow and arrows.... while Ravana had all magical weapons and blackmagic which does anything to win over the opponent.
Lord Rama told Vibhishana not to worry and that He is ready to face Ravana with the Dharma chariot that He has. The Lord says anyone having this chariot sees only victory and hence it is also called the Vijaya Ratha.
The back larger 2 wheels of the chariot are souraja - showing valor and courage and being fearless and showing the act of bravery. When we introduced the word "Souraja", we asked the class if they knew what it meant. They did not, then we told the class to find out what their names meant and the reason behind why their parents named them their names.
Courage-- power to withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.
To fight the fear to overcome the attachment. Detached mind alone can be fearless. If we overcome any unwanted attachment, the fear is gone.
Here we discussed the example of the Chrerokee Indian who has to sit blindfolded all night in the forest only to find that his father was with him the whole night. We also spoke about the story of Ratnakar and Narada and how Narada gave him the wisdom to be detached and remove his fear and how he was transformed into Vaalmiki. We also talked about the mice that were being eaten by the sneaky cat and how a courageous mouse was able to put a bell around the cat and protected the rest of them.
The next set of slightly smaller wheels in the front is dhiraja, fortitude, patience-- showing strength while facing difficulty.
Fortitude-- showing strength at the crucial situation: not running away from a problem, but facing it and accepting it, trying to solve and untie the crooked knots. We discussed examples of the bilateral leg amputee who competes in Spartan races and marathons and endures the challenge and overcomes it. To be as calm as the mighty ocean. With a greater depth , the ocean accepts whatever is poured into, the ocean knows to take it. Whatever experience comes to us, we must know to take it. If we have these wheels we can skate and go around life. We discussed the importance of patience and that all things happen in their own time, rushing it may not lead to the result that we may intend. We talked about the golden egg laying hen and about different things like a bud blooming that needs to take its natural course and like the need for us to go through middle school then high school then off to college.We talked about the hare and the tortoise. We also discussed gardening. We are so very happy that many of our students love to garden and that they realize that patience is a big part of it!!
In Ramayana, we discussed why the trio found it necessary to leave Chitrakut and move deeper into the Dhantaka forest. We talked about the fact that rishis move deeper into the forest to find peace for meditation, for detachment and to perform yajnas, unfortunately demons are always around trying to disrupt that. Lord Rama's encounter with every rishi and demon had a specific purpose. We discussed the encounter of the trio with Sage Sarabhanga. We will continue our journey through the Dhantaka forest in our next class.
Gita Time- we learned the next 2 verses from chapter 5.
Due to Swamiji's pravachan that has now been scheduled for April 6th, our class stage performance has been moved to Sunday, March 30th. We had sent a WhatsApp message requesting confirmation of your child's availability. Thank you for those who have responded, for the rest of you please let us know ASAP.
With warm regards,
Rahul and Keerthi
