November 18th Class

Beginning Prayers:

• 'om' chanting - 3 times
• meditation
• shuklaambaradharam, saraswati namastubhyam, gururbrahma

gitaa chanting:

• 13th adhyaaya 1- 4 shlokas

hanumaan shlokas/bhajans:

• buddhirbalam
• hanumaan chaalIsa 1-8 chaupas

Brain Storming:

• What is sweet speech
• What is untainted heart

Story time:

• Strong ox and the farmer

Activity:

• Order raamaayaNa incidents according to chronology

Ending Prayers:

• sarvebhavantu sukhinaH
• pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
• aarati and pledge - in the auditorium

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Prajna didi:

In today's class, we did japa during the meditation time.  We worked on using the japamaala, the correct way.  Some of us were fine and some are still working on the flipping when the guru bead was reached.  But in no time, we will get good at it.  We then did the gItaa chanting, hanumaan chaalIsa, etc.  For our activity, we had a game of ordering the events from raamaayaNa in the correct sequence.  We had fun recollecting all the lessons we had learnt in 1st grade!

We already learnt the meanings of the individual words in the shlokam - 'buddhirbalam'.  In the second section, we will be spending quite some time learning the meanings of the chaupas in hanumaan chaalIsa.  To begin with, we learnt that it was written by 'tulasIdaas' in a language called 'avadhi'.  It is said that one gains sweetness in speech by chanting hanumaan chaalIsa.  To establish how 'sweet words' can have a profound impact on others, we listened to the story of 'The strong ox and the farmer'.
Then, moving on to learning the meanings of the verses, we saw that in the first verse, it speaks about having 'untainted hearts'.  We brainstormed what untainted meant.  We learnt it with the example of a lotus.  It grows in dirty, murky waters but never lets itself be tainted by the grime.  Similarly, when a heart is pure and unaffected by the surroundings, just like the lotus, we would have untainted hearts.

We then went to the auditorium for aarati and pledge.  Have a happy long weekend everyone.  We will see you in two weeks.

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Madhuri Aunty and Shilpa Aunty:

1. Began the class prayers with meditation using the japa mala
2. We also revised the first five geetha chanting with madhuri aunty and learnt the 6 and 7th one
3. Madhuri aunty also talked about arogatha and ajaadyam.
4. We played fun game of P and S - posture and smile to see how many of us are really practising ajaadyam
6. We also moved on to the next backbone quality of vakpatutvam and shared a story of hanuman and socrates and learnt how important is vakpatutvam.
7. We also did likitha japa today.

Reminders:
1. Please ensure to bring the following to your class every week.
Japa mala, gita chanting paper, super hanuman book,notebook oly for likitha japa, pencils and color markers and most importantly lots of energy!

Timing:
Meditation time begins at 10:00 am in the class for 5 min and the lights will be turned off when the meditation is in session.

Please be kind enough to wait outside until the japa is completed to avoid noise and distraction to other kids who are doing this meditation.

Wishing you all a very happy thanksgiving weekend!.. will see you next class.

November 11th Class

Beginning Prayers:

• 'om' chanting - 3 times
• meditation
• shuklaambaradharam, saraswati namastubhyam, gururbrahma

gitaa chanting:

• none

hanumaan shlokas/bhajans:

• buddhirbalam

Brain Storming:

• What is eloquence

Story time:

• Socrates

Activity:

• Making of sandal paste, putting the sandal paste and kumkum(vermillion) on the japamaala boxes and sanctifying them

Ending Prayers:

• sarvebhavantu sukhinaH
• pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
• aarati and pledge

Comments:

Rashmi Aunty and Prajna didi:

We had a blast coming back to class after a long break.  (We had walkathon one week and then due to hurricane Sandy, we had a cancelled class too.)  Today, we learnt about japa and the use of japamaala to do the japa.  We also learnt about how sandal paste is used as an offering to God.  We had a fun activity where we all even learnt how and made with our own hands, some sandal paste!  We saw how the sandal wood is rubbed on a stone, with a little water and it gave out some very cool, fragrant paste of sandalwood.  Each child came up and experienced rubbing the sandal stick on the stone themselves.  Then, they were all getting their special 27 bead (quarter) japamaala-s which we will be using through out the year.  So, they put a dot of the sandal paste on their boxes, put some kumkum on top too.  They were already blessed by our Swami Shantanada-ji, now they prostrated to Goddess Saraswati, Swami Chinmayananda-ji and Swami Tejomayananda-ji and received their blessings as well.  We promised to take good care of our maala-s, be respectful to them, handle them well and do japa the right way.  We all learned that there is a 'meru' bead or the 'guru' bead at the beginning/end of the maala.  We learnt that the right way of doing japa, is by putting the string on the ring finger and moving the beads towards us, one by one, with the thumb.  We also spoke about how the meru/guru bead should never be crossed. When we reach the meru, we need to flip the string 180 degrees and continue with the japa.  We practiced quite a few times, how to do this, without dropping the beads :).  We had so much fun doing all this that, we just had time for one little story about eloquence, the last word in our shlokam!

We learnt that 'vaakpatutvam' means 'eloquence'.  To be effective communicators, we need to be eloquent.  To be eloquent, we need to know what to speak when!  All these are attained by praying to hanumaan.  Do talk to your children about the story of Socrates and his talkative visitor :).

We will see you next week.  Until then, enjoy meditating with the japamaala.  

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Madhuri Aunty and Shilpa Aunty:

This week we did the following in the classroom

1. Began with morning prayers.
2. Madhuri aunty handed out the japa malas to all the children and taught them how to hold the beads and do the japa.
3. There are few more kids who did not receive it last week and will receive it this week
4. Please remember to bring the japa mala every week. It will not be replaced by the teachers if lost
5. we also completed the first 4 verses of chapter 13 in bhagavad gita
6. We recited hanuman chalisa and and read story of swami  tapovan ji, guruji of swami Chinmayananda di and also story of the sleeping rabbit. The story carried the moral of “nirbhayatvam” – fearlessness
7. We ended the class with prayers and pledge
8. Likitha Japa – Please keep a separate notebook for likitha japa. We are currently writing : Sri Ram Jaya ram Jaya Jaya Ram. The idea is to keep this notebook beneath the Hanuman idol in the new temple – ashram in cranbury.
 
Reminders:
 Please remember to bring the following to the classroom.
-          Folder, my prayers book, japa mala, pen , pencils, super hanuman book, a notebook for likitha japa.
 Thank you,