March 25, 2020

Notes by Dhruva Shreejay

Review

We reviewed the value of Maithri (Being Friendly) that we studied in last week’s class. We learned that everyone is watching us. If we do our best to improve ourselves, our friends will watch us and they will do their best to improve their selves.

Story

Swami Chinmayananda was a great student of Swami Tapovan. One day, Swami Tapovan decided to test Swami Chinmayananda. He asked Swami Chinmayananda to wash and dry his kurta (shirt). Swami Chinmayananda took the kurta and did everything he needed to do to wash it and carefully hung it on a tree to dry the kurta. Later, Swami Tapovan came to Swami Chinmayananda and said he ripped his kurta. Swami Chinmayananda confidently said he didn’t rip the kurta but Swami Tapovan kept accusing him of doing so. He asked if Swami Chinmayananda was accusing him of lying. Swami Chinmayananda decided he wasn’t worthy enough to be a student of Swami Tapovan. He started to leave, but Swami Tapovan stopped him. He told Swami Chinmayananda that what he did was a test. He wanted to see if Swami Chinmayananda would react badly and call him names, but Swami Chinmayananda passed the test.

Message of Story

The message of the story is how Swami Chinmayananda was understanding, which is our value for this week — Daya, being understanding.

Lesson from The Little Prince

The Little Prince went to many planets. On the fourth planet he met a businessman. The businessman was busy counting stars as he said he owned the stars. The Little Prince said, just because the stars don’t belong to anyone, it doesn’t belong to anyone. “The stars are useful to you, but you are of no use to the stars”. The businessman was not watching carefully. If you watch carefully, you understand.

Practice

Vivekji asked us some riddles –

1. The more there is of this, the less you see. Answer: Fog or darkness

2. What starts with t, ends with t, and has tea in it? Answer: a teapot

3. I am an odd number and if you take away a letter, I will be even. Answer: seven

4. What travels faster, heat or cold? Answer: cold

5. How far can a dog run into the woods? Answer: halfway

6. What word contains six letters and remove one letter; twelve remain? Answer: dozens

7. It is in the center of gravity, it is in Venus, but not in Mars. Answer: v

RAWs (for upcoming week)

· Before your feet touch the ground, show your gratitude

· Write Shanti 20 times at 9a.m, 12p.m and 6 p.m.

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Notes by Sahana Iyengar

Vivekji’s story was about Swami Chinmayananda. One day, Swami Tapovan, his teacher, decided to give him a test. He told Swami Chinmayananda to dry his top. Since they were in the olden days, Swami Chinmayananda, put his teacher’s top on a tree. A little later, Swami Chinmayananda, heard a call.

“You ripped my top!” Swami Tapovan said angrily.

“No, I did not,” Swami Chinmayananda said.

After a bit of arguing, Swami Chinmayananda was going to leave. He thought he was unfit to study under Swami Tapovan, after he “ripped” his top. As he was about to leave, Swami Tapovan said that this was all a test. So Swami Chinmayananda stayed at the ashram. So the value is Dhaya which means being understanding.

So how do you understand your friend? One student suggested that we listen to them. Vivekji said that you could watch them carefully. Let’s say that there is a new girl in your class that everyone wants so desperately to be friends with her. You could watch her carefully and see what her habits are and come up with a similarity.

The practice was to answer a couple of riddles. Sadly, I forgot them, so I cannot write them down.