Announcements

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Our last meeting for this academic year will be on June 22nd for the Annual Day. The posters made by our class will be used to decorate the hallway for Annual Day.

See you all at 3.30 pm at Crossroads Middle School on Jun 22nd.


Hari Om!

Saturday, October 26, 2013

October 20, 2013

Today in class we discussed the different types of Karma Kanda. Karma Kanda basically means duties everyone has, and it applies differently to everyone. 
 
There are 6 types of Karma Kanda:
 
Nissidha Karma - Things you shouldn’t do
Kamya Karma - Driven by desire. There are good desires and bad desires. Good desires have long-term positive effects, while bad desires only satisfy short-term (positive or negative) wants. 
Niyata Karma - Follow rules
Sanchita Karma - The balance of positive and negative values between lives.
Prarabdha Karma - The destiny/result of Sanchita Karma.  Also, it ends vasana (tendency). When vasana is burnt out (becomes 0), it stops the life-death cycle, when full service to god is performed.
Agami Karma - Things you do to achieve the end to the life-death cycle.
 
We also briefly discussed the 16 Samskaras. They are:
  1. Upanayana
  2. Samāvarthana
  3. Vivaha
  4. Garbhadana
  5. Pumasavana
  6. Simantonnayana
  7. Jata Karma
  8. Nama Karma
  9. Niskramana
  10. Annaprasna
  11. Cudakarma
  12. Karnaveda
  13. Vidyarambha
  14. Vanaprastha
  15. Sanyasa
  16. Antyesti
There are also 8 inner qualities, we only touched base on one of them: Kindness. We heard a story about a poor little boy who got some milk from an old lady. Later on in life, when the lady was critically ill, she needed an operation. Afterwards, the bill was really high, and she didn’t know how she was going to pay it back. It turns out, the surgeon who worked on her was the same boy she gave the milk to a long time ago. He grew up to be an educated surgeon, and he recognized the woman, and waived the bill. This story showed us that kindness pays back later on.
 
We concluded class today by performing the aarthi and pledge in the auditorium.
 
- Sashank Srinivasan

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

October 13, 2013

Today in class we discussed the Vision of the Scriptures and how if we understand them it can  help influence our thoughts. These then  help us to choose and act on those choices. These actions result in success or failure.

There are three sections that the Vedas explain and directly address the basic kinds of problems:
Karma Kanda: the ritualistic portion is prescribed to clear the impurity of the mind.
Upasana Kanda: deals with worship and meditation and helps deal with restlessness of the mind and 
Jnana Kanda: helps us attain highest knowledge.
Karmas when done with understanding will clear it of  the impurities of the mind is the idea of:  what limits us from understanding. They are the actions of what we do, for example doing ritualistic prayers clear the impurities of the mind. Because of human nature, the mind perceives what it gets. Karma Kanda has to do with the perception and the response we give to that. To help us understand this further, Ram uncle gave us an example of how we pre judge a person based on color, age, what a person wears etc. We can change this response by performing actions which having a good intent.

Upasana Kanda helps us overcome the restlessness of the mind and how you get close to the supreme being. In this phase you are asking yourself what am I trying to achieve? The scriptures say to control your mind you should meditate or think about God (we had done this in the beginning of class). The last phase that we learned about was Jnana Kanda, when you achieve Jnana you are with God. To achieve this you must get rid of all the ignorance in your mind. We also talked about perceptions and their responses. They are driven by our desires. There are two things that the Vedas tell us, “raga” and “dvesa”-which mean likes and dislikes respectively. 
We concluded class today with getting our Likhita Japa books. These notebooks are for us to write in and put in the ashram. They are put in front of the idol to bring more power to the deity, help us quieten our mind and help us focus.

- Ameya Ivaturi

Sunday, October 6, 2013

October 6, 2013

We began class today with a discussion on the origins of our values.  Our values are said to be from the breath of God, only revealed to self-realized individuals.  Of these individuals, great gurus such as Veda Vyasa, Adi Shankaracharya, Swami Vivekananda, and Swami Chinmayananda made these teachings more available and understandable for the common man.  Revelations are perceived and acted on, which is the reason we follow them now.




From our source - God, come Srutis and Smritis.  Srutis are revealed knowledge, given to us by ear. Smritis are memories, compared to a secondary source.  There are 18 Smritis that are told as stories, most popular being the story of Manu.

From Srutis, come the Vedas, organized and compiled by Veda Vyasa: Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva. Vedas are Hinduism’s oldest scriptures whose creation Hindus accredit to Brahma. The Vedas are hymns and prayers priests chant during poojas.
From Smritis, there are 6 important categories of scriptures we study.

Itihasa is history that inspires us; this includes the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

Puranas are divine stories centralized on one God that have important morals. Examples of puranas are the Shiva Purana, Ganesh Purana and Vishnu Purana.

Sad Darshana, or six ways to live life, consist of six systems: Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta.
- The Nyaya Sutras were composed by Gautama and states that one can attain moksha by avoiding illusion and unhappiness.
- The Vaisheshika system was created by Kanada who proposed that everything in the universe is composed of a finite number of atoms.
- Sankhya was founded by Sage Kapila, who believed that the universe has two realities: Purusa (consciousness) and Prakriti (basic nature). When Purusa and Prakriti are put together, the end is moksha.
- Yoga comes from Sage Patanjali, who teaches that yoga is physical, spiritual and mental discipline. - Mimamsa -  started by Jaimini, is the study and following of dharma.
- Vedanta - attributed to Veda Vyasa is the study of spirituality.  At Chinmaya Mission, we focus on Vedanta, which is the path to self-realization.

Next, we learned about the Sad Angas, or six limbs of knowledge. Before the age of technology in India, there was still very developed research. These categories included astronomy, Siksa (phonetics), Kalpa (religious rules), Vyakarna (grammar), Nirukta (etymology) and Chandas (meter for poetry and chanting).

Lastly, we talked about the Upavedas. The Upavedas are the studies of cultural aspects in society. There is Ayurveda (medicine), Dhanurveda (the art of warfare), Gandharvaveda (music, dance, art) and Stapatyaveda (architecture).

To conclude our class, we brought up cause and effect once more as it is always present in our lives. We can question beliefs and procedures, as long as we take time to apply our understandings. The system of learning, analyzing and application is very useful if we use it to focus on our progress and goals.  Success is not far off if we put in the time.

- Mahima Kakani

Thursday, October 3, 2013

September 29, 2013


Today in class, we went over a variety of topics and we began with something called “gracious professionalism”. Whenever we have something to say, it is important that we respect others around us. If we don’t agree with what someone else says, it is not correct to say a derogatory comment back. That is the meaning of “gracious professionalism” which we will maintain in class from now on.

We began today with a discussion about what is “prakriti” also known as inner nature. Our inner nature is “Sat-chit-ananda "( existence - Conciousness-Bliss), to be happy. This is dictated by svabhava also known as our nature which are dictated by our actions. We should not engage in Vikriti, perverted nature.

 We discussed about cause and effect. The Law of Consequences states that there is a cause and effect to all our actions. But some classmates including me believed that not only cause and effect was important, but luck was incredibly significant. After a discussion, we agreed that even luck was dictated by cause and effect.  That led to a discussion about God and who is God. God is a power that watches over us, a silent guardian who plays everything fair who can be experienced. Something that made us understand this was the conversation read of the web between the professor and student. It clearly demonstrated the point that science and philosophy as incredibly different. Science is based on facts while religion’s entire premise is based on faith which says that believing in this greater power will give us the courage to fight and deal with bad and good things. Although God cannot be seen, He is everywhere.GOD who is omnipresent,omniscient is the unchanging factor in this constant changing world.

We then talked about how each one of us is special and have taken up this life for achieving something special.   It is because of our past karmas that we have got the life of a human being.  We should do our best to make the best use of it for us, our society and our country.
 
Dev Devnani