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Hari Om Parents
There are a few upcoming key events and dates please mark them on your calendars and do your part without fail - thank you
- Shlokathon - Mar 18th (Registration closing soon), https://bit.ly/Shlokathon23
- Bhajanostav - April 29th, registration open ( parents & kids can participate. event organizers will facilitate formation of groups - no worries) - - https://bit.ly/bvbhajan
- Annadanam for Grade 5 - Mar 18th Saturday - Please look out for email , sign up and donate generously. If anybody is interested in cash donations, please do so well in advance.
- Geetha Chanting Registration opens Mar 19th. - We need maximum participation. Except for one or two most kids are doing very well, so please ensure all the kids participate.
We started our class with Likhitha Jaapa, followed by our daily prayers and Ganesh Pancharatnam. Almost all kids are all comfortable in reading ganesha pancharatnam fluently from the text, a few have memorized it too. Kudos to all the kids and parents for encouragement. After the daily activities, we practiced Nirvana Shatakam's first 3 slokas. Please have your kids practice with them. There is an interesting backstory to this slokam - These six verses were spoken by AdiShankaracharya, when he sought his first guru at the age of eight On arrival, the guru asked adi shankara - who are you, typically folks like us introduce ourselves by our name, parents and their lineage, but adi shankara introduced himself by what he is not. Follow the lyrics and their meaning for further details.
We introduced the concept of pilgrimage or yatra to holy sites and it's significance in our lives. Every major religion ha this concept of it's followers performing a sacred journey to it's sacred places at least once in a lifetime. Christianity has its holy places in the Vatican, and Jerisalem, Islam has it's Mecca and Madina Buddhism has Bodh Gaya and Dharmasthala etc. India, the land of Sanatana dharma, has so many places. Infact, personally, every village in India is a sacred place and has much to see and visit. However there a few key places in India where most Indians want to visit - like Benaras, Prayag Raj, Hardwar, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangothri, Yamunothri in the north, Tirupati, Srisailam, Rameswaram, Tanjore, Madurai, Kanchi, Srirangam, Chidambaram, Udipi, Sringeri, Sabrimala etc in the south. We will continue our discussions further on the topic in next couple of classes.
After the discussion on pilgrimage, we discussed the seven national symbols of India: the national bird, animal, fruit, flag, flower, epic anthem and language. On the topic of language there is assignment for the kids which need your inputs
- Each kid has to write his/ her name in their mother tongue telugu/ tamil/ kannada/ hindi etc. Please ask them to write in large letters we want to display in our class.
- Each kids has to list names of languages in India that they know (they cannot google and parents cannot dictate 😀, but can help with pointers)
- A third task - please record the recitation of bhagavad gita either from memory/ or from text and send it to
The kids were too full of energy this week and to calm them down, we practiced meditation for 10 min and did the bhagvad gita slokas recitation follwed by swamiji's slokas 21 and 22 and disbursed for aarati and pledge.
With pranams,
Shivram and Anuradha
Resources to learn:-
Ganesha Pancharatnam
https://youtu.be/Oyo0FWP9fB8 (play at speed of 0.75)
Nirvana Shatakam/ Athmashtakam (on screen lyrics in english and meaning)
https://youtu.be/rKx7K13OvQ4
https://youtu.be/7MooNhXCbHA - a peppy version, suitable once the lyrics are mastered.
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