Hari OM Everyone,
We started off our class with the Daily prayers as usual and then moved on to Dasavatara storam and Guru Stotram. We then reviewed the Prahlada story from last week. They all remembered it very well. We reviewed the 9 modes of devotion that we had covered last week.
1.Sravanam
Listening to stories of the Lord - they all immediately recognized that they were doing Sravanam in class when listening to Bhagavatam stories 😊
2.Kirtanam
Singing the glories of the Lord - they immediately related to the Dasavatara stotram
3.Smaranam
Remembering the Lord
4.Pada Sevanam
Serving the Lord - we talked about how God is in everyone and when we are helping others we are actually serving him. We related to the words in our pledge where we talk about devotion to the people is devotion to the Supreme Self.
5.Archanam
Offering flowers, saying our prayers etc - we talked about the Saraswati Puja we did at the beginning of the year in the temple hall
6.Vandanam
Bowing down to the Lord - we discussed how we say Namaste and Hari Om when we greet each other - we are actually bowing down to the Lord in the other person.
7.Daasyam
Serving the Lord - like Hanumanji
8.Sakhyam
Treating God as our friend - we discussed about Sudama's friendship with Krishna last week. And this week we told them the story of Krishna, An Invisible friend - this book is available in the bookstore with beautiful illustrations. It talks about a boy Gopal who is scared to go through the forest to go to school and his mother tells him that his older brother Gopal lives in the forest and the boy with implicit faith calls out to Him and Krishna comes and plays with the boy everyday. Ask them for the rest of the story! 😊
We talked about how we can also treat God as a friend and every night before we go to bed tell Him everything we have done during the day!
9.AatmaNivedanam
Surrendering to the Lord - understand that God knows what is best for us and not complain.
We then moved on to the story of Gajendra Moksha. We talked about the previous life of the elephant king Gajendra as King Indradhyumna and how because of disrespecting a sage he had become an elephant in his next life. But at the time of danger, when all his efforts were unsuccessful, he remembered Sri Hari (he had been a devotee in his earlier life) and called out to Him and the Lord came instantaneously to save him from the clutches of the crocodile. We talked about the back story of the crocodile who was actually a Gandharva. Ask them who a Gandharva is and what was the name of this Gandharva who had become a crocodile (they all thought he had a very funny name 😊)
We then did a word search puzzle with words from the story. We followed along with Swamiji the 59th and 60th verse. We did not have time to practice further and record the Shlokas this week but will continue next week.
We have decided to portray the stories of Dhruva and Ambarisha for our stage program on May 18th and will soon start working on it during class. Please make sure that the kids attend all classes without fail so we don't have to do too many practices out of class.
Some useful links -
Registration form for storytelling - Last date for registration March 31st - last date for submission - April 30
Registration form for Art - Last date for registration and submission of audio - March 31st
Link to Swamiji's youtube video of Geeta -
We would love to hear your feedback. Would appreciate if you reply and let us know that you have read this mail.
Thanks & Regards
Jayashree & Suja
Jayashree & Suja
