Hari Om! Parents,
Please save these important dates to your calendar and encourage your child to participate in these events:
1/28/23 - BV Houses Storytelling contest, 2/12/23 - Our grade performance during BV assembly (practice details TBD), 4/15/23 - Grade 6 Annadanam Seva
Week 8 Class
Children did this Likhita Japa 11 times at the start of class - " Sri Krishna Sharanam Mama ''. Please remind them to do likhita japa regularly at home. Please send their notebooks to be tallied for the likhita japa BV Houses points over the next couple of weeks.
Shlokas
We started with Om chanting, and then chanted Sahana vavatu, Vakratunda mahakaya, Saraswati namastubhyam, Sarva mangala mangalye (ref. My Prayers book pg 39) and the "Mahalakshmi Ashtakam" (ref. My Prayers book pg. 40) and Verse 1 "Mahishasuramardini Stotram" (ref. My Prayers book pg. 47)
Going forward, one child will be designated to lead the class in shloka chanting. Hopefully this will be an incentive for your child to learn the shlokas.
Mahabharata*
After a quick recap of the previous week's prasangas, we continued our discussion on Bhishma Parva. The most sacred of Hindu texts, Srimad Bhagavad Gita is the gem of the Mahabharata. Eighteen chapters long, it has seven hundred verses and is "the song of the divine". It is the dialogue between Bhagwan and his true devotee or the true seeker. We spoke about how our Pujya Gurudev loved the Bhagavad Gita, and in the span of 40 plus years conducted many Geeta Gyana Yagnas all over the world. In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna had the physical, mental, and intellectual capabilities to fight, but this was not enough on the battlefield. Arjuna asks many questions and Bhagwan clarifies three main things for Arjuna - sorrow about facing his loved ones in battle, ignorance about his true self, and confusion about how to act. The children shared situations where one's mind can be our friend or our enemy. We spoke about the five senses and how they can confuse our mind. The class shared examples of need vs desire, and how desire is the cause of all misery. Lord Krishna's advice to Arjuna is useful to us in our day to day lives - control the senses, do your Dharma and act, realise that the Self is indestructible, eternal, imperishable. We spoke about how this knowledge is a gift from Bhagwan passed down to us from rishis and our gurus. The children will do an in-depth study of the Bhagavad Gita later in their JCHYK classes.
Throughout the first nine days of war, Bhishma is a powerful force. He destroys a huge part of the Pandava army. The greatest of Pandava warriors are helpless before Bhishma's fury on the battlefield. However, Duryodhana is not happy that the Pandavas are still alive. He complains to his great grandfather, at the end of every day, for not killing the Pandavas. He accuses Bhishma of being partial. He even tells Bhishma to give up fighting, so Radheya can take over as commander of the Kaurava army. This hurts Bhishma, who has given his all for the Kauravas. Bhishma explains that he cannot kill the Pandavas because Lord Krishna is on their side, but Duryodhana does not understand. Bhishma is fed up with Duryodhana's disrespect. But he is duty bound to protect the Kuru clan, so cannot give up fighting either.
Finally, by the ninth day of war, Yudhistira is very worried that soon they will not have an army left to fight. So along with his brothers and Lord Krishna, he visits Bhishma that night. Yudhistira with a heavy heart tells Bhishma they cannot win as long as he is alive and asks Bhishma how they can kill him. The grandsire tells them that he will not fight Shikandi, since he is actually Amba. He gives them his blessings to win the war. The next day, as planned, Shikandi challenges Bhishma on the battlefield. Once Bhishma puts down his weapons, Arjuna shoots several arrows at him. On this tenth day of war, Bhishma falls down on a bed of arrows. Since he has a boon to give up his life of his own accord, Bhishma decides to wait for the auspicious Uttarayana to die. Arjuna shoots an arrow into the ground, and mother Ganga springs up and quenches her son's thirst. It is a sad day for both sides to have lost such a great warrior.
We paused the Mahabharata story here.
India, the Sacred Land
Topic : Our Land - Languages
We discussed the fact that several regional languages are spoken in different parts of India. Despite this, we are all bound together by our "Sanatana Dharma". We discussed a few facts about Sanskrit ( which means "well done"):- it is the mother of all European languages, it is the language of the Gods: "Devabhasha", all our ancient texts are written in Sanskrit, the ancient grammarian, Panini, used Lord Shiva's 14 codes (sutra) to organise Sanskrit grammar into 4,000 rules, the Sanskrit literature is very vast.
Activity - Write their name in their mother tongue. If they cannot, then ask someone at home to help and bring it back next class
Geeta Chanting
We learnt Verses 9 and 10 today from our Swamiji (ref. Bala Vihar Handbook pg 17). Here is Swamiji's Geeta chanting video link for your child to practice with the correct pronunciation. Geeta Chanting Yagna will be held in April. Grade 6 is in group Partha, and is assigned verses 1-30 this year.
We assembled in the Prayer Hall and the children did an excellent job leading the Aarti and Pledge recitation today!
- Rashmi Kuroodi and Venu Sadda
Supplies needed for every class:- Bala Vihar Handbook, My Prayers book, their special red notebook and pencils for likhita japa; everything in their Bala Vihar bag
*Reference books - Mahabharata by Rajagopalachari / Mahabharata by Kamala Subramaniam
