Sanskar Gurukul Weekly Update

Class Name: Agastya Week# 04: October 13, 2013

General Assembly We started with the 3 Oms and the Shanti mantra.

We discussed the festival of Dussehra - what it signifies. The kids were very interactive - we discussed the victory of Mother over Mahishasura, and the vanquishing of Ravan by Sri . We discussed 10 vices we should conquer - even as Lord Rama conquered the 10-headed - lust, pride, anger, greed, attachment, cruelty, jealousy, ego, selfishness, injustice. We discussed an example of each. In many communities in India - Vijayadashami is also celebrated as an auspicious day to start new studies, the arts and music, and one pays respects to one's teacher. To celebrate and show such respect to our gurus, we then proceeded to chant the Guru Stotram. Since many of the children were new, and we had two new classes this year - we did lead and follow of the first three shlokas and the last one.

Class Sonali Aunty told the story of how the world was created by Lord and Manu and Satarupa were the first man and woman respectively. Since Manu and Satarupa were asked by Lord Brahma to raise a family, they needed space on Earth to do so. Lord Brahma was in deep thought on where to find the Earth when suddenly from one of Brahma's nostrils there appeared a minuscule creature, not so very different from a flea in its appearance. It flew out gradually growing in size. It was no flea, but a boar, a Varaaha. The boar grew in size till it became massive: larger than a full grown elephant. Those gathered there realized that He who they prayed to had come in answer assuming the form of Varaaha. They bowed their heads to in the form of the boar.

We revisited King Parikshit's story for just a few minutes. Then, we moved on to the Avatar of Vishnu. Brahma created the first man and woman who were Manu and Satarupa. He needed the earth to be brought out of the Ocean for them to live on. Vishnu took the avatar of a boar (Varaha) and dived into the ocean and brought the earth to the surface. When he brought it up, he was attacked by the demon who was killed in the battle. We started to discuss the sons that were born to sage Kasyapa and his wife Diti who kept 2 sons in her womb for 100 years - Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakshapu. We will continue the story on Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakshapu in the next class. We closed with closing prayers.

Punita aunty explained about values, that everyone of us would like to be cheerful,obedient,honest,kind ,brave etc. These qualities in us becomes a value and makes us a better person. The value of the day was being CONTENT .She related that with a story about a goat and a camel who had their food though one was tall and the other short. Then she explained about a mean man called who totured a bull and his legs.The bull was DHARMA and his four legs were Austerity,Purity,Kindness and Truthfulness. place had Arrogance,Untruth,Lust and cruelty. In this age people love to visit where Kali lives so we never indulge in these. When Dharma declines and Adharma rises then Bhagwan takes a form to guard the good and

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Sanskar Gurukul Weekly Update

destroy the evil.

Homework

Practice daily prayers.

Announcements

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