Nov 24th Class

Beginning prayers

• 3 times ॐ chanting, Meditation
• Daily Prayers (click here for script)

Gitaa chanting

• bhagavadgItaa 14th adhyaaya 1 - 12 shlokas

Story time

• jayadratha punished
• kavacha kundala
• yudhiShTira meets dharma

Ending prayers and pledge

• sarve bhavantu sukhinaH, pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
• aarati and pledge - in the auditorium

Synopsis:

Rashmi aunty and Sitaram uncle's class:

This week we did the regular prayers and giita chanting. Next we learned more of the Mahabharata. This week we started off when Jayadhrata, the king of Sindhu came to the forest and saw Draupadi. He falls in love with her and asks her to marry him. But Draupadi says that she is already married to the five Pandavaas and that she can't marry him. Jayadhrata gets furious and carries Draupadi away from the forest. Then, sage Dhaumya sees this and tries to help Draupadi but fails because the king is too powerful. When the Pandavaas come to know of this from Dhaumya, Yudhishitra stays to take care of Dhaumya's wounds while Arjuna and Bhima go after Jayadhrata.When they both catch Jayadhrata, they shave off his hair but leave five tufts around the head to punish him. Then they get Draupadi back. After this Jayadhrata does thapas to Lord Shiva. He asks for a boon to defeat the Pandavaas. Shiva says no, but he grants him a boon to defeat every pandavaa except Arjuna - once in a battle. Meanwhile Indra is planning to go to Karna as a brahmin  and ask him for his kavacha and kundala. Then the sun god appears to Karna in a dream and warns him of what Indra is planning. But Karna says I will give anyone anything they want if they ask for it. So the sun god advises Karna to ask Indra for a boon in return - the weapon, shakti. Then Indra comes and Karna gives his kavacha and kundala away. Then Indra grants him a boon and Karna gets the shakti weapon. Meanwhile in the forest, the Pandavaas hear the cry of a brahmin and rush to help him. He says that a deer took his pooja things and ran off. The group of five brothers rush off to catch the deer and soon get tired. Then Yudhishitra sends Nakula to get water. When Nakula comes to the lake, an invisible person asks him to answer some questions before he gets water. But Nakula doesn't pay attention, tries to get water and falls dead. When Nakula didn't come back Yudhishitra sent Sahadeva and the same happened to him. Then Arjuna went and then Bhima and the same happened to them. Finally Yudhishitra goes himself and finds his brothers dead. Then he answer's the invisible person's questions which are all about dharma.
Couple example questions -
What is faster than wind?  Answer - mind!
What is nectar? The answer - milk.
Then the person gets impressed and he says Yudhishitra can pick one brother to come back alive. He picks Nakula because he wanted one son of Kunti and one son of Maadri to be alive. The person gets really impressed and all of the brothers come back alive. Then everyone finds out the person is Yama Dharma raja. He gives the Pandavaas a boon and they wish that they can go unrecognized in the thirteenth year( the incognito year). The paanDavas were busy accumulating weapons and boons to help them with their life in forest and incognito, as well as for an impending war later on.
Then we did our ending prayers and ended class.

Written by Sukruthi Thunga

Nov 17th Class

Beginning prayers

• 3 times ॐ chanting, Meditation
• Daily Prayers (click here for script)

Gitaa chanting

• bhagavadgItaa 14th adhyaaya 1 - 11 shlokas

Story time

• story of the day

Ending prayers and pledge

• sarve bhavantu sukhinaH, pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
• aarati and pledge 

Synopsis:

Rashmi aunty and Sitaram uncle's class:

In the morning we did our daily prayers then we did geeta chanting. We also learned verse 11 which was pretty hard to pronounce in the beginning then later on we got better at it.
     Continuing the story of Mahabharata, Arjuna went back to Indra's palace to tell Indra that he got paasupathaastra. The Gandharva-s were also there. One Gandharva was named Chitrasena, he taught dance to Arjuna. They became good friends.
      Returning to the forest Arjuna showed his new powers to the other pandavas (yudhiShThira, and others). Naarada came to the forest and told Arjuna not to misuse his powers.  Those weapons were very powerful and should not be summoned unnecessarily.

     Bhima was attacked by a python named Nahusha who was cursed. Bhima couldn't fight the python and knew that he was no regular python so he asked the python to reveal himself. Nahusha reviled himself and told Bhima that he had gotten cursed because he was arrogant and touched a sage named Agastaya with feet while sitting on a palanqun. The curse was to be broken when he understood what dhama is.  Yudhishtira answered all those questions easily and Nahusha was released from his cursed python body.

           One day Duryodhana wanted to show off his power and wealth to the paaNDava-s.  So he went to the forest which was owned by the Gandharva-s. There lived Chitrasena  who was the dance teacher. Duryodhana was arrogant he wanted to enter the forest even after the Gandharva-s refused entry to him.  So Chitrasena captured Duryodhana. When the pandavas heard this news, they all felt happy except for Yuddhistra.  He said they had to go save him.  Arjuna and bhIma went and saved Duryodhana . Chitrasena told Duryodhana his mistakes and how he treated the pandavas and yet they came to save him. Duryodhana feels so embarssed that he wanted to die. But his friends pacified him and he feels better and started to prepare for war since it was the last year. Duryodhana treated everyone so badly such as the sages and got way too many curses.

      One day a Sage named Duurvaasa came to Duryodhana's palace. Duryodhana treated the sage very good since that sage gets angry very quickly/easily. Drona decided to tell the sage to go to the pandavas for lunch since he wanted the pandavas to get cursed since living in the forest there wasn't a lot of supplies for a lot of people. So sage Duurvaasa and his many disciples went to the forest for lunch with the pandavas. The pandavas didn't know that they were coming and also draupadi had already eaten. The sage and his disciples told the pandavas that they take a bath in the river and then come for lunch. The pandavas knew that they were in trouble. So draupadi prayed to Krishna for help. Krishna appeared in front of Draupadi. Krishna asked Draupadi, even through he knew her problem, for something to eat.  Draupadi knew he was joking with her and asked him to help her. Krishna told Draupadi to bring the pot (akshaya paatram). Drapaditi gave the pot to Krishna and Krishna reached into the pot were a single grain of rice was stuck to the bottom of the pot and Krishna ate the grain of  rice and rubbed his tummy indicating that he was full. Suddenly all the people in the river felt too full to eat anything and they knew Yudhishtira would get very angry since they told Yudhishtira to be ready with the food and its not good to say I'm not hungry once you tell someone to make something for them. So the sage and his disciples ran away.

    After this, we did ending prayers and went home.

Written by Komal Nagpure

Game of Dice

November 10, 2013
Section: 1

Game of Dice

Hari Om!

Beginning prayers

• Breathing exercise, 3 times ॐ (OM) chanting,  Sahanaavavatu,  Meditation
• Daily Prayers - Karagre Vasathe,  Saraswathi Namastubhyam,  Brahmarpanam,  Shubham Karoti,  Karacharana Kritam
• Guru Stotram (Page 9 of My Prayers Book)  

Bhajan 

• Gauri Nandana Gajaanana
• Dashavatara Stotram(Page 117 of My Prayers Book - Shlokas 1-8)   

Gitaa chanting

• Bhagavad Gita 14th Chapter 1 - 9  shlokas

Story time

• Game of Dice

Activity

• Discussion 

Ending prayers and pledge

•  Aarati and pledge 
• Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah, Purnamadah Purnamidam

Synopsis of the story:

The Exile

Last time in Balvihar: Krishna and Arjuna saved Maya, an asura. Maya granted them one wish. Then the pandavas got a half of the kingdom of Hastinapur. This land was very unpleasant. But the Pandavas with their hard work transform it.

That is when Maya comes in. He built a Palace for the Pandavas out of gems that were from the lake Bindusara. The Pandavas ruled for a long time and were very prosperous. They even performed the Rajasuya Yagna. Therefore, Duryodhan gets very jealous and asks his uncle Shakuni for a plan to grab the land. Uncle Shakuni thought of the “game of dice” plan. Watch episode 47 of BR Chopra’s Mahabharath. In this episode, Sakuni tricks the Pandavas in the game of dice and makes them lose all their possessions including themselves and Draupadi. Dussasan is rude to Draupadi, but Krishna saves her. Dhritarashtra gives back the Pandavas everything but Duryodhana again invites them for a game and this time, the Pandavas had to go in exile for 13 years and the last year they had to hide. If they are found or stated they had to start another 13 years and hide again.

Jai P.

                

Nov 10th Class

Beginning prayers

• 3 times ॐ chanting, Meditation
• Daily Prayers (click here for script)

Gitaa chanting

• bhagavadgItaa 14th adhyaaya 1 - 10 shlokas

Story time

• paaNDava-s go to forest (finish maitreyi’s curse and kRuShNa’s pledge briefly)
• arjuna’s visit to the heavens
• bhIma meets hanumaan

Ending prayers and pledge

• sarve bhavantu sukhinaH, pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
• aarati and pledge 

Synopsis:

Rashmi aunty and Sitaram uncle's class:


 In the morning we did our daily prayers then we did some geeta chanting. We also learned verse 9 which was pretty hard to pronounce in the beginning then later on we got better at it. When we were talking about the Mahabharata we learned that Maitreyi gave a horrible curse that Bhima will kill Duryodhana by ripping his thigh. When Krishna wanted to have a war with Duryodhana for taking YudhiShThira's kingdom, the Pandavas said no because they had to stay in the forest for twelve years. But if Duryodhana did not give the kingdom back in 12 years then they would have a war to get their kingdom back. In the forest, the Pandavas practice astra so that their mantra would give the arrows the ability to defeat the enemy easily and practiced their shastras too. Arjuna did meditation for Shiva so that he could get Shiva's weapon which was called the paashupataastra. Unknowingly, Arjuna gets in a fight with a hunter that is actually Shiva. Since they both hit their arrow at a wild boar, they both claim that it is their boar for killing it first which ended up causing a fight. In Arjuna's mind he is thinking that he should win the fight for Shiva but he still doesn't know that the hunter is Shiva. Then Arjuna prayed to Lord Shiva to help him to defeat the hunter!  The hunter was Shiva himself, so Shiva revealed himself and said that Arjuna was worthy enough of his weapon. Arjuna was not arrogant about his skills.  When he knew he couldn't defeat the hunter, he prayed to the Lord to help him.  That set him apart.  Then Arjuna gets the paashupataastra and goes to heaven to meet Indra.  In the forest, Bhima meets hanumaan.  When he went to get the 1000 petal lotus for Draupadi, he came across a monkey that was lying with his tail spread out.  When asked to give way, the monkey said, put my tail aside and pass.  When Bhima tried to do that, he could not even move the tail.  He realized that this is no ordinary monkey.  When he prayed, the monkey revealed himself as hanumaan, Bhima's brother, as both were sons of vaayu.  He blessed Bhima with more power and said he will be the emblem of Arjuna's chariot flag during war too.  At the end of class we did a quick closing prayer then went home.

Written by Aryan Dornala