Symbolism - Lord Shiva

We had a full house this weekend class. We met after almost a month but for our field trip. Having completed the section on Lord Mahavishnu, we continued our journey to learn about Lord Shiva. The students participated enthusiastically and pointed out the various forms of Shiva and the items adorned on his body, his abode. It was a very lively class. We saw a story, played a game and we discussed about our Pujya Gurudev, his Guru Swami Sivananda and Shri Tapovan Maharaj. Please ask the kids about the class. We discussed about Samskriti, our year-end program which falls on June 18th, Saturday in our ashram in Cranbury. The students volunteered to read the short stories book "Parables" to pick a story for a play for samskriti. For now, I like story 9 "Many in one". I encourage you to read and come up with suggestions. We need to pick a story that no other class have picked.

In the class, we stressed the significance of Shrimad Bhagavad Gita and the benefits of chanting. We practiced the first two slokhas. We encourage the kids to practice at home. www.geetachanting.net, is a great resource, where it has recording for every line for all 18 chapters. Please check it out. It is not just for kids, we encourage the parents to learn this as well. Please make use of the available resources and benefit.

Good job by Diya and it is pretty close between Isha and her on the prayer log.

See you all next weekend.

Yoga & Shri Maha Vishnu

This week, we had our Yoga combined with 6th graders. Some of our students didn't bring the yoga mat. We had a great session. Our Yoga teacher shared a very good thought with us. Yoga is not just doing various poses, but it is the process of preparing one body to be receptive and be able to reach meditative stage. Lot of us are not able to maintain any posture for beyond few seconds! With the advent of so many electronic gadgets, we have no dearth for distractions. The best thing is for you to stay / sit in one posture on the floor with a straight spine for Five minutes every day. Please practice this alone or along with your kids. But please practice. To make this a practice, we are asking all the kids to bring their Yoga mats to every class. So they can sit in the floor for a specific period. After Yoga, we revised the details on Lord Shri Vishnu and how "Shantakaram bhujaga Sayanam.." is a Dyana slokha. Please ask the kids and we want them to be able to recite this slokha next class. We didn't have Isha and Anupriya in the class. Great job by Diya and she is catching up to Isha on the prayer log. We have three participants for the prayer log and we want other kids to join too. Please have your kids fill up the Prayer log.

The coming sunday, the class is a field trip to the Swaminarayan Mandir in Robbinsville, NJ. Please sign up on the invitation you received and be there promptly by 9:45. The temple tour starts @ 10 AM, followed by a video, Arathi and lunch.

Symbolism - Sri Maha Vishnu continued

Hari OM,
Happy new year and because of the event in the high school, we had only four students in the class. We started the class with assembly bajans, arati and pledge. We reviewed the prayer logs - great job on the part of Dhruv and Diya. We encourage the other students to do prayer log as well. This is an activity to log your prayers. We want everyone to develop the habit of spending time with GOD. We continued in our journey into understanding Sri Maha Vishnu through the various symbols. Dhruv helped us with "Shantha karam.." and we reviewed the various aspects of Vishnu - How purity, refreshing and nourishment are conveyed through the symbol of "Kheerabdi Sagara - milky ocean". We saw few stories that reinforces showing kindness, using sweet words in dealing with others and being compassionate. We saw why milky ocean is used to symbolize the abode of Vishnu that it is refreshing, nourishing and pure. We saw the meanings of Conch - Panchajanya, maze - Kaumadhi, Sudharshana chakra and the Lotus. Sri Vishnu gives a clarion call using the conch to make us pay attention and follow the noble values & the righteous path, treats us with disappointments, failures that hit us like being hit with a maze and annihilates the qualities or those who don't follow the noble values with the Sudharshana Chakra and finally offers the benefits of following the righteous path through Lotus. Lotus grows in muddy pond but the mud never affects or alters the flower. It symbolizes that we like Lotus should not let the unwanted thoughts to muddy our lives and be pure.

We concluded our understanding of Sri Maha Vishnu through these various symbols. It is not just the kids, it has been a great learning experience for Aparna and I. This is a wonderful concept / perspective and I encourage the parents to read the book "Symbols of Hinduism" that you bought for your kids. Maha vishnu chapter is around page 96.

We need to start planning for this year Samskriti. Kids came up with the concept of having a skit with some folks approaching Pujya Gurudev with questions on Symbolism and some chosen topics could be explained through contemporary movies / happenings. Kids can either collaborate and prepare some ideas around it.

In addition to this, we would like every one to specify a "role model" for them and explain why they are their role models. what quality inspired, excited and tinkled their mind.

Next weekend Jan 17th - we are meeting in our Cranbury ashram for Chinmaya Mahatsov. please check your email.

Thanks,
Aparna
Rajesh

Symbolisms of Hinduism - Gita Jayanthi, Lord Vishnu - Contd...

Hari OM,

Today we had almost all kids except Anupriya. Good job on the part of Isha and Diya for filling the prayer log and Isha is still leading with 153 minutes. We did Guru Stotram in our class and the newer kids also improved and thus we encourage Isha and Sitara to do as many (not just 2) Guru Stotram slokhas. We are going to do the Biksha in April. We would like all Kids to be proficient in Guru Stotram and Guru Paduka stotram. Here is the link for the audio for it http://bbnjbalavihar.com/joomla/images/stories/Teacher_Slokas/GuruStotram.MP3. Audio for all slokas are available here http://bbnjbalavihar.com/joomla/index.php/slokas-audio-taught-in-class . You may need to login, if you have difficulty logging on, please let me know. Please play this for the kids or put it on their youtube list, so they can listen.

Good job on the part of Isha and Diya for writing FIVE names of Vishnu. Today, we celebrated Gita Jayanthi with Gita Quiz. All the students did wonderful and they answered everything. Good Job and please congratulate the kids at home as well. We continued on our journey through the symbolism of Vishnu. Today we discussed tha names (Purushothama, Pavithram, Anirudha, Ananthasayana...) and the symbolism of Vishnu's common depiction of Anantha Sayana on Adhisesha with Lakshmi Devi at his feet. Please ask the kids about it. Ask them why is Vishnu just lying on the bed is he busy or just resting? why does he look like just resting? what is the symbolism of it and how he transcends time.

Please fill the prayer log (Guru Stotram, Sri Rama rama... & Shantakaram Bhujagasayanam...); write FIVE more names of Vishnu; Most probably we will be wrapping up talking about Vishnu and move on to our next topic. We will have a quiz on names of Vishnu and the meaning. Please listen to Vishnu Sahasranama. 

Wish you  all a Happy New Year. I would normally say "Stay Warm", now "Enjoy the warmth" as much as available. See you all Jan 10th. 

Regards,

Aparna Yamunan

Rajesh Ramamoorthy

Hari OM,

We had all students in our class but for one. We started with review of the Dyana Sloka meaning we discussed in the last class - "Shantakaram Bhujagasayanam..." We discussed the meaning again and how various artists or people can visualize or create a mental form for Vishnu based on the Dyana Sloka. The kids recited "Sri Rama Rama Ramethi..." and we reiterated the importance of this Sloka. Today we had more participation on the prayer log front (Diya joining) with Isha continuing the lead. We reviewed the five names of Vishnu and their meanings that each student had written from home this week. This is the third week we are reviewing Vishnu names. Some of the names we saw today are Damodhara (one who has a string around the waist), Shreeman, Vasudeva, Dravina pradha, Hrishikesha, Dhruva. We also saw a story on some names (Dravina pradha, Dhruva) and that how the meanings of names are at various levels from literal to more deeper philosophical. By now, each student would have known 15 names of their own and some more names from the other students and the names we discussed in the class.

We discussed Gita Jayanthi, the background on Gita and Vishnu Sahara nama. We are planning to complete the topic on Vishnu by next week. We encourage kids to listen to Vishnu Sahasra namam. We would like Kids to have listened to the Sahasranama atleast once by next week, write five more names of Vishnu and practice the attached Gita Jayanthi Quiz questions. Next week, we will review and have a quiz on the names of Vishnu as well.

Please continue the prayer log with Guru Stothram, Sri rama rama. See you all next week.  We have asked the kids to look at the blog as well so they can remember what went on in the class and what they need to do before coming to the class. Please talk to your kids about the class and the homework they need to do.

BBNJ family has been planning lot of family activities in Feb, March and April. You will hear more about these in separate emails as well as our upcoming classes. The first class in Feb, we are planning for a field trip to the VRAJ temple http://www.vraj.org/. Our year-end Samskriti is being moved to June 18th, the Saturday in our Cranbury ashram.

Hari OM,

Today, we had a combined Yoga session with the 6th grade. Good job kids in getting the yoga mats!  We learnt a lot of new asanas and how to comfortably sit and how "no pain, no gain" doesn't apply to Yoga. With that we had only 40 minutes left for our discussion on "Lord Vishnu". Again, Isha did a good job in filling the prayer log and is currently leading the pack. Sitara & Isha can say the first three slokhas of Guru Stotram eleven times and the "Sri rama rama ramethi.." three times. A small correction, that slokha is in page 129 (and not 92) of "my prayers" book. The rest of the team can say entire Guru stotram once and the Rama slokha. Isha and Diya did the homework of writing FIVE additional names of Vishnu. The rest of the team did that in the class. Now, everyone should know TEN names of vishnu in addition to the TEN avatars.

We went through the Dyana Slokha in Vishnu sahasra namam "Shantha kaaram..." Page 92 in My prayers book and the meaning of it. How anyone can visualize a form for Vishnu from the Dyana Slokha. The kids have been asked to draw a form or a drawing based on the meaning of the Dyana Slokah. We breifly went over the symbolism behind Tilak / Bindhi / Tripundara through a story. We will continue on this in our next class.

We heard from couple of kids that they have heard Vishnu Sahasranama. We advise you to let the kids listen to it or visit the Bridgewater Temple @ 6:00 PM. There they recite it every day at 6:00 PM. Spend some time with kids discussing Lord Ganesha, Vishnu and the symbolism involved.

See you all this Sunday 13th.

Hari OM                                        Sunday Nov 1st 2015

We started the class with our starting prayer. The kids are getting used to the new class room and enthusiastically participating in the class. 

This week class, almost every student came up but for Anupriya.

We continued our journey on learning various symbols of Ganesha, its meaning and relevance to the day-to-day life. During the class all the ideals of Ganesha, his various names were re-inforced again. The students were able to remember, recollect the stories, anectodes and the various meanings. 

The discussion centered around why Ganesha has an elephant phase and what each part of the body symbolizes. 

Here are a few

Big ears - Listening

Trunk - Discriminate between Good and bad

Big belly - store the knowledge learnt.

mouse -  Controlling the mind / thoughts.

We had couple of small experiments as the kids challenged it is easy to "doing nothing". For two minutes, they had trouble keeping quiet (doing nothing). Somewhere giggling, tapping the foot, smiling etc. We explained how tough it is to "not do anything". One need to control the mind to be quiet and how tough it is to control a mouse. That Ganesha chose mouse as his vehicle symbolizes how important it is to control the mind and how he leads by example and that the kids need to practice. 

The other experiment we did was to have Dhruv outside the class and gave instructions to the rest of the students on what to do. One of the student was asked to give instructions when Dhruv returns, while everyone but one person would follow it and Dhruv has to find the person who was not listening (or who was sleeping when the game was explained). Anupriya gave the instructions and Suchir played the person who was not listening. Being a small class, Dhruv was able to figure it out quickly. However, the kids understood that how important is listening and that symbolized by Ganesha.

Followed by this we did Guru Stotram. Almost all class can read it easily and half has mastery over it. We asked Isha and Sitara to read the 1st slokha every day with the japa mala and log it in the prayer log. The rest can say all the slokhas everyday and log it.

We played "hang man", this time around the couple of kids volunteered to pick the words and everyone participated.

There is no class the following week and our next class is on Nov 15th. We are planning some craft work. So please have the kids bring color markers, scissors and glue stick.

Happy Diwali to all.