Hari om Parents,
Second class and we had full attendance (almost)!
We went over what is going to be our standard format: prayers, meditation (for 2-3 min), learning to chant bhadram karunebhi shloka, revising last week's class and discussing current class work. There is geeta chanting that happens in the middle of the class. We will then go to the assembly hall for aarti & pledge.
We went over the content covered in the last class. Key points:
- Review the exercise about making something from nothing. Can we really create something from nothing? - We always depend on basic elements.
- There are a multitude of things that are created out of the basic elements.
- We ourselves are from these basic elements. Our body is made of these. So, as our body changes, we are changing too. Does the "I" in us change too?
- These characteristics that make us different from others are our uniqueness. In the same way, the collective uniqueness of the group is the culture of that group.
This was the starting point of our class this week. We saw a video showing images of the traditions followed by people from around the world. These traditions like dances, art forms, food, dresses, practices and ceremonies are expressions of their culture. We asked some students which pictures they associate with, are familiar with and why. Just like many cultures are following their culture, we too follow our culture in all its forms with pride.
We then covered the formal definition of culture as defined by Swami Chinmayananda - "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."
The inherent nature expressed in a natural way is called Prakriti and the aberrations or transgressions of the natural way are called Vikriti. Vikriti is possible for humans, who have the ability to act contrary to the inherent nature. These Vikritis have to be controlled through Sanskriti.
The expression of culture through materialistic means is Bhautika and expression of culture through spiritual means is Adhyatmika. They are both related because Adhyatmika is usually expressed in the Bhautika way too.
Swami chinmayananda expressed this in the following couplets -
"Man's control of external nature is called Civilization…
His control of the internal nature is called Culture."
Some other things we did in the class -
- We are selecting a time-keeper every class - one of the students who makes sure we do not miss important events like Geeta chanting, class end time & are on track.
- We are expecting all students to take notes. (Top 5-10 things that they learnt). We are nominating one person in the class to write a class summary that will get appended to this note. This week's summary was done by Anwita Chindunoor.
---- Student's summary by Anwita Chindunoor ----
This week in Balavihar we learned what culture really means. We associate culture with many things and it differs between every community. Some things that define culture include food, dance, traditions, people, clothes, language, and so much more. Something interesting that was brought up in class was how different cultures have different procedures from birth to death (baptism, cremation of body etc.). There are many cultures throughout India and many young people think that their parents making them do things are ritualistic but in reality everyone around them is doing it in their own ways. In India, every 100 miles the food changes, and even North and South India eat different things for breakfast. Culture in samskritam is SAMSKRITI (best way of doing). Everyday culture is reviewed which is also known as SANAATANA (always new and evolving). We also discussed how our bodies are our most sophisticated equipment. In our culture religion and science never contradict each other and instead they always compliment each other. For example, in the 12th century they figured out how to melt steel in a controlled way for a temple (science + religion = culture). The way that someone behaves often comes from their culture. In the duration of the class we discussed what religion means and in which ways our culture was unique.
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Please follow the class happenings in the chinmaya balvihar blog -
regards and pranams,
Sitaram Kuchibotla
Sitaram Kuchibotla
Partha Turaga
