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!

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

January 26, 2014

Today in class, we first discussed the three ways to reach spiritual success. The first way was practicing Bhakti. This means you devotedly worship God. The second way is Karma Yoga. To do this, you have to practice selfless actions and can’t harm anyone. Finally, Jnana is the third way to reach spiritual success - when you have true knowledge and self realization.


Dharma Chara means to do your duties.  We categorized Dharma into the duties based on different stages in life. Among the duties of a child, there are specific duties we need to do for home, society, nature, yourself, animals and our country. For  home, our duties include things like cleaning after ourselves, our room, helping parents and also respecting them. Duties for society include doing selfless acts like volunteering to help better our communities. For nature, we should do things like save energy, recycle, not wasting food or anything from nature, and making sure not to pollute. Duties for ourselves include going to school, learning, and studying. Animals should be treated nicely and we should be good citizens by doing our civic duty of voting and ect. We also talked about treating our body like a temple, being clean and not harming our bodies. The best way to complete these duties is to make a change in our lives to do them.


Cheating was a topic the class debated on for a long time. We first established that most of the time success in school means you will have success in life. However, many argued that famous businessmen like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were all dropouts from school and they ended up being some of the most successful people today. But there was also the other side that only less than 2% of the people who drop out actually came close to their position. Then, this led to the topic of Satyam Vada and after a lot of debate, we all agreed that cheating and lying are bad things to do.


This brings us to today’s main topic which was Ahimsa. Ahimsa means non-violence. When we think of Ahimsa, the first person that comes to our mind is Mahatma Gandhi. His non violence movement led India to its independence. Violence can be caused through our speech, thoughts and actions.  A doctor may be doing surgical actions that can be considered violent in ways but when we look at his intentions or thoughts, he does not want to harm a person - as his duty is to help and save people. After this, we ended class with prayers.

-Manasa Dornala

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

January 12, 2014

Today, we started with the teachers brought up a discussion on how our (the students’) resolutions were. Next, we reviewed what we had learnt so far this year in Balavihar, starting with the Hindu samskaras.  We discussed on the three gunas which are satvik, rajasic and tamasic. The dominant guna in most humans is satvik because we are good living human beings. We went on to understand the caste system in India which had four groups - brahmanas, kshatriyas, vaisyas and sudras. 


The brahmanas are inherited with the satvik guna because they are the teachers who spread knowledge to all. In addition, they do not ask for anything in return such as money or food for their education. Next, the kshatriyas are somewhat satwick because they do their their duty as a warrior, protecting the common people. The Kshatriyas are also rajasik because they fight in wars to kill and also are sometimes greedy for land and gold. The vaisyas dominate the rajasik characteristic because they are the merchants and the business men who ask for money in return for their products. The Sudras dominate the tamasik over the other gunas because they are usually very lazy and depend on others to do their work (often as parasitic). For example, a scientist is satvik because he works hard for the welfare of the common men by finding cures for all diseases that arise. Another example, an actor is rajasik because he acts for entertainment for all people, but works for money in return for his hard work.


Then we discussed about Satyam Vada: Always speak the truth.   On the Indian National Emblem, it states that “Truth always wins”. No matter how far you argue, you will some day realize the importance of the phrase on the Emblem. The Emblem states that “In order to realize that truth always wins, you need to slog like a bull and jog like a horse and follow the path of dharma”.


The next chapter of our class was about the Dharmam Chara. Dharma Chara is to do your duties. Not only students, but parents, grandparents, aunts, sisters, wives, uncles, or whomever it may concern must follow these rules, respectively. Sons or daughters must respect their parents or other adults in other places.  These words are the most important for a brahmacharya or a student because it defines even more in depth the prescriptions of what they need to accomplish at that time period. In addition, our duties towards our parents are to be obedient, respect them, do some chores without complaining and to clean up after ourselves. You need respect for all your elders, even though you may encounter some situations with these problems. But, it is our duty to give our elders some basic respect at the least.   


We wrapped up the class having some announcements on the future programs that will occur later. We will be having an Anna Danam, an offering to the common people arranged at a Soup Kitchen. There were many students who offered to provide food for the Anna Danam. The teachers offered a special thanks to them. Our grade is having a penny drive. Our teachers have a special request that you bring pennies for charity before February ends, because the penny drive will end then.


-Bhargav Singaraju