Hari Om!
Dear Parents,
It is with much gratitude to God and our Gurus that we started our first in-person Bala Vihar class on Sunday.
An important aspect in our learning is Bhakti, the devotional reverence that keeps us connected to the Lord at all times. This year we will be keeping Bhakti as a central theme in all our activities and discussions.
The schedule was as follows:
- Opening Prayers: Chanting Om three times, followed by Slokās (Vakratunda Mahākāya, Saraswati Namastubhyam and Buddhir Balam).
- Introductions: We spoke about a little about ourselves, interests, activities and what they would enjoy doing during this year of Bala Vihar.
- The curriculum for the year is Mahābhārata with specific emphasis on the Mysticism and the values that come from the Yaksha Prashnam. The phrase 'Yato Dharma Tato Jayah' was discussed (with current examples) to get a deeper understanding of how the path of Dharma always leads to victory.
- Symbolism in Hinduism is an important topic to cover this year, mostly to help them understand and dispel wrong notions of our Dharma. We started with Ganesha's symbolism in class with artwork and discussion.
We will be discussing the story of the Mahābhārata in the upcoming classes and highlighting the characters for a deeper understanding of the values that will be covered along side the story.
We have created the WhatsApp group, link to the group is
https://chat.whatsapp.com/DLEwVsN55ZMJtTa2rNrGLr
We look forward to a fruitful and energizing year ahead. Please make sure the children attend class regularly.
See you all tomorrow - Sunday, September 25th at 12:45pm.
Pranāms,
Rajesh Jayakumar and Nivedita Sridhar
