March 29, 2021
Notes by Vastavi Choudhari
Review of Last Week:
Om Vinaya-Silaya Namah- I admire the one who is humble.
Three rules to being more humble:
- No job is too small.
- Always give others credit for your success.
- Never be afraid to admit our mistakes.
This Week:
Om Samnyasine Namah: I admire the one who lives simply.
What does it mean to live simply?
It means we have less, do less and think less.
- Have less means that we don’t have an abundance of things around us.
- Do less means to do the activities that are meaningful but do them well.
- To think less means that you have more positive thoughts and less negative thoughts.
What does it mean to live simply?
It means that we are better at letting go of things.
Story:
One day Lord Krishna and Prince Arjuna were traveling and they were looking for a place to stop and rest, that is when they passed by a poor farmer. All this farmer had was an old cow and this cow could only give one glass of milk to the farmer everyday. So when the farmer saw Lord Krishna and Prince Arjuna he invited them in and gave them his only glass of milk. Prince Arjuna and Lord Krishna were moved by his generosity and they were. So when they left Lord Krishna gave this farmer a blessing and he said that may your cow pass away. After that they came across this wealthy merchant’s house, so when the merchant saw them at the gate he shooed them off, so Lord Krishna a blessing may you have more and more wealth. Now Prince Arjuna asked, how could you bless this merchant and curse that farmer. So Lord Krishna said, I blessed the farmer because once that cow dies the farmer will dedicate all of his time and thoughts to me and I cursed that merchant that as he gets more and more wealth he will never think of me. Those people who are focused on Lord Krishna their life is filled with joy and those you never focus on me their life is filled with sorrow. Moral is that whenever we have more things or more stress our mind is always moving that we never get to experience joy, but when we have less things to worry about we enjoy life more.
Q and A
What if we like doing a lot of things and can’t choose between?
As soon as you are doing too many things where you have to put one of the activities down then you are doing too much but if you are able to do all those things and give your full attention to each one then you are just right.
RAW( Reflection adventure of the Week)
You should go through all the things you own and count all the things you have not used in the past year.
=============================================================
Notes by Vishva Sachania
Introduction:
Today’s value is Sannyasa, to admire the one who lives simply.
Story
One day, Krishna and Prince Arjun were travelling in a forest, looking for rest. Along the way Krishna and Arjun stopped at a Farmer’s hut. Sadly, this farmer only had one cow who produced only one glass of milk per day, because it was becoming old. Gratefully, the farmer donated his only glass of milk for the day to Krishna. Krishna knew this was generous of the farmer and gave the farmer a blessing. The farmer’s blessing from Krishna was: May your cow die. Arjun was very confused, and he was left in shock to leave this poor man without his cow. Arjun decided that maybe he shouldn’t say anything to Krishna, because he knew Krishna had a reasonable reason to have given this farmer an odd blessing. As Krishna and Arjun continued throughout the forest, they reached the gate to enter the village, and they met a merchant along the way. Because Krishna and Arjun appeared to look poor and dirty (because they were travelling so long and were very dirty), the merchant and judged them. So now Krishna gave the merchant a blessing to be very wealthy. Prince Arjun could not help himself but to ask why Krishna was giving such strange blessings. Krishna replied: “I blessed the farmer to have his cow die because, he won’t have to be distracted by the cow and then he will spend more time thinking of me which brings joy to people, and I did the same for the merchant because wealth will keep him busy from thinking of me” The End.
Moral
The moral of this story was that with more distractions and things in life, you will not be able to live simply.
Practice:
We looked in our closet to see if we had 2 articles of clothes that we haven’t worn in the past month. We also discussed that we should donate clothes no longer special of necessary to us. (Which is a great way to learn how to live simply!)
Q & A:
Q: What is the best way to use my time?
A: Maintain the schedule of getting up early and going to bed early. And reflect on whatever you do. For example, when you are about to do something, ask yourself, will what I am doing right now effect who I want to be in this world?
Q: How do you change negative thoughts to positive thoughts quickly?
A: You may not be able to do it quickly, but you have to change the perspective of how you view those negative thoughts, so they become positive.
RAW
Our RAW this week is to go through all the things you have, and you should feel surprised!