Notes by Om Shreejay
Review of last class
We reviewed the virtue of Aniketa (Being comfortable everywhere) that we studied in last week’s class. We learned that you should be comfortable in any place in any situation. We can do this by letting go of the feeling that anything is MINE and remembering that everything we have is BORROWED.
Virtue for this week
This week we studied the virtue of Anushasana Priya.
Om anushasana priyaya namaha — which means “I admire the one who loves DISCIPLINE.”
When do we need discipline? We need discipline when we have to do something that we don’t feel like doing e.g. doing homework, waking up early, eating healthy, practicing a musical instrument, exercising. We don’t need discipline when we feel like doing something that we already like e.g. watching TV, playing video games.
All the things that we have to do are called our RESPONSIBILITIES. Discipline is being responsible, doing our responsibilities in a CHEERFUL way. Discipline is when you do something that you do not want to do, but you do it anyway in a cheerful way.
How do we develop this virtue? We do this by being GRATEFUL.
Story from today’s class
Shankarji studied in an ashram at Trinidad for 2 years. One of his responsibilities was to take care of a cow called Gauri. Shankarji had to wake up before his classes started at 5:30 AM, untie Gauri and walk her to the field to eat. He had to deal with ant bites and cow poop (not fun!). One day while Shankarji was tying Gauri to the tree he put his leg inside the loop by accident and his foot got tangled in the rope when Gauri started running, dragging him along. This was the last straw for Shankarji!
Shankarji thought taking care of Gauri was too much of a burden and asked himself why he had to take care of her. He decided that he would tell the teacher that he was done taking care of Gauri. He was late for his class where his teacher was teaching the story of how Bhagavan Sri Krishna used to steal milk and butter from the villagers with his friends. The teacher asked the class who the milk and butter belonged to. It belongs to the cows who made all the milk for their calves and for everyone. This made Shankarji realize that it is we who are stealing milk from the cow and he was being ungrateful and selfish by not wanting to take care of Gauri.
Lesson from the story
Shankarji’s relationship with responsibility changed when he started doing his responsibilities as an expression of his GRATITUDE.
We must learn to be grateful for all the things that we have in our lives. We should think about our responsibilities and do them to express our love and gratitude.
Practice and its significance
Get a glass of water and a slice of bread. Dip the bread in the water and eat it slowly for 2 minutes. The bread became soggy and was not tasty.
The lesson from this practice is to be thankful for the food we eat and to eat it gratefully. In our lives, we may not like something e.g. the food we eat, but we can still eat cheerfully with gratitude for what we are eating. Choose to be happy even if you don’t like what you are doing.
RAW for the week
This week one of your responsibilities is to clean up after lunch and dinner — CHEERFULLY, with gratitude!
Also, Vivekji will be back in class next week!
=============================
Notes by Pranavi Ananthanarayanan
Virtue for the week — Discipline/Anushasanapriya(sanskrit word for the virtue)
Discipline means whenever we do we do our best — Being Responsible
Anushasanapriya — I admire the one who love discipline.
Shankarji’s Story
Shankarji shared a story where he was taking care of a calf in an ashram but he was not interested as he has to wake up early morning before the class starts, but he didnt really like to take care of the calf which was his assigned duty by his guru. When he heard Lord krishna’ story by his teacher he realized that the calf(baby cow) gives us so many varieties of food products like ghee, milk, butter, butter milk, yoghurt without taking anything in return. So that day he realized his mistake and loved to take care of calf in the ashram.
RAW — Wash the dishes and clean up the vessels after the meals.