Om Gunatita Namah: I admire the one who is not controlled by their moods.

Three main classifications of moods:

• Sattva-Sattva is when you feel calm and clarity in your mind nothing bothers you.
• Rajas- Rajas is when you feel a lot of energy and agitation in your mind. Rajas can be good or bad.
• Tams- Tamas is when you feel tired and lethargic.

Class this week:

Om Jagat-Sakshine Namah- I admire the person who is observant.

What is observant?

There are two levels of being observant the first is when you are able to know what is going on around us and what is changing. The second level is when we are aware of the thoughts that are going on in our mind.

Why is it important to be observant?

When you are observant you can catch thoughts and things. For example, if you want to be more confident and you are going to do something that will make you more confident and then a thought tells you that you are nervous and when you catch that thought you will be able to be more confident.

Story:

When Shankarji was studying about happiness he studied in a place called Trinidad and in our culture the students have to make sure the teacher has everything they need, and each week one student was assigned to help the teacher. So, one thing that you had to do was to give the teacher food and when you give the teacher food for the second time you can not ask them if they want more, so you have to be observant and see their facial expressions and other things. When that week was done Shankarji saw a change in him, he could always do the things that he was supposed to do. For example, Shankarji always wanted to exercise after having lunch and he struggled because he wanted to sleep, but after that week Shankarji could get himself to exercise very easily.

Practice:

We played the game detective and in this game we had to be observant because there was one person who was doing an action and the others were following. The detective had to be observant and see who was leading the action.

RAW

You have to serve your family food and when they are finished with their first serving you have to serve them more without asking them.

==========================

Notes by Vishva Sachania

Review of Last Week

This class we learned about Jagat-sakshi which means to admire the one who is observant.

Class this week:

When Shankar Ji was in Trinidad his community had to respect their teacher and be their personal assistant almost. Everyone in the Chinmaya Mission Ashram had a responsibility to serve the head guru all 3 meals of the day. But there was a twist, the person who served the head guru had to do it a certain way. The way to properly serve the guru was to read their expressions, pace, emotions, and depending on that they served however quantity of the food they thought they needed.

Lesson:

The moral of this story is to be observant of the things surrounding you and the life around you, and not to be self-expressed all the time. And to also use those observant skills to use by catching and being aware of any negative thoughts that come too mind and push them away!

Practice:

This week we played a game to test our surrounding skills. We played “Detective”. In this game one person was the detective, and they closed their eyes while another person was “IT”. The person who was it had to move or do a certain action, and everyone had to copy the person who was it creating a locomotion. When Shankarji said to switch, the person who was it had to change their action and that would give a clue to the detective who was is the person that was it.

Q & A:

Q: How do I become more observant?

A: You should talk less to control yourself and those negative feelings. And don’t forget to be attracted to the things around you, and be interested and aware of things.

RAW

Serve your family dinner (you are not required to make it, but to serve it) the “special” way Hint: The way Shankarji had to serve the head guru in the story.