Hari om Parents,
We started with regular prayers and we are continuing to practice "Bhadram Karnebhih" shloka.
We started with the recap of the Karma topics covered last week. Karma means action. And action implies an actor. There are some many activities happening inside us eg. Digestive processes, respiratory processes, Sensory processes, Thoughts etc. Who is the actor in each of these? In some cases, we claim we are the actors but are we really? Thinking is also action in a way that is done by us. For other processes like breathing or our heart pumping blood are working on their own, without our knowledge and when we are in deep sleep, without our awareness too. Who is the actor here?
In general, the action can be through body, mind or speech - Kaya (physical), Vaka (oral) and Manas (mental).
There were very interesting questions by the students and we digressed into slightly 'advanced' concepts. These were mostly through questions by students around 'what happens next' - Actions accrue 'points'. Good actions accrue good 'points' and Bad actions accrue bad 'points'. Actions give Results to the Actor - Period! So, the net good 'points' we accrue are ( good 'points - bad 'points'). After our body dies, these good 'points' give us some time in 'heaven'. Once we use up our good 'points', we are sent back to this world. We get a chance to continue accruing good or bad 'points'. There are different types of 'heaven' and 'hell' depending on the 'points' we get.
The next question from one of the students was - How long does this keep happening? Karma Yoga is the way out of this.
Just then, our class was called to the assembly. We have asked the students to think about this some more as home work till next class.
We had a short class. There were house activities in the assembly hall. Each house, with students from all grades, were given puzzles to solve as fast as possible. High school students had a sentence puzzle and other grades had four jigsaw puzzles to solve as fast as possible. The result was supposed to be pasted on a construction paper and then presented on a foam board. points were given for completion and presentation. It was a lot of fun to see the excitement in children competing.
---- Student's summary by Varun Pannala ----
What is Karma? After beginning the class with daily prayers, our class started off with a recap of the last class based upon the topic of Karma, which is none other than an action that has a contradicting result. The main actions that people undergo are through the body, speech, and even thoughts that are produced in the mind. We also learned about vasanas, which are inherent tendencies that people are born with. Something that I found interesting was that despite not being a circumstantial action, bias can also be an expression of tendencies. In conclusion, the main thing that should be understood about Karma is that you are the owner of the consequences of actions no matter what. They can be received in a millisecond or in your next life.
The next thing we talked about was the concept of heaven-hell through Karma - (Good Deeds lead to Heaven, Bad Deeds lead to Hell, and a split between good and Bad leads to earth time). This cycle was described through a class example given by Sita Rama uncle. It showed how someone with bad and good actions would constantly either receive heaven and hell time, or eventually take birth on Earth. This person only experienced temporary satisfaction, and never felt true, everlasting happiness. So how can someone prevent being like this? Well there is most likely no way to win this loop. However, it can be done through karma yoga, which is complete surrenderence of actions. To further specify, our actions aren't meant for inner satisfaction such as "I saved him. therefore I did a good deed and karma will pay me back later." This just imposes a path to heaven, which repeats the endless cycle again. " Our actions should be done for others and never to please our inner satisfaction. The important statement I received from this concept was - "There is no winning in I!".
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regards and pranams,
Sitaram Kuchibotla
Partha Turaga
