April 8, 2020

Notes by Dhruva Shreejay

Review

We reviewed the value of being fun and being straight that we studied last week. Someone who is fun doesn’t care if anyone laughs at them. They are having fun and will laugh at themselves too.

Story

Nachiketa was a dynamic child. He met Yama — God of death who was very happy with Nachiketa’s courage. Yama offered Nachiketa 3 boons. Nachiketa’ s first boon was to make his parent’s minds become quiet. His second boon was for society to be happy. His third boon was for happiness and peace for himself. Yama was surprised at the boons Nachiketa was asking for. He told Nachiketa that his boons could be to have great singers to sing to him every day or dancers. Nachiketa said he didn’t want any singers and dancers, he just wanted peace and happiness. Yama knew that what he was saying was a test and Nachiketa had passed it. Yama taught Nachiketa to be happy and peaceful.

Message of Story

The message of the story is that if one is rational and free, we can achieve happiness.

Lesson from The Little Prince

The little prince travels to many planets and meets many people. Everybody he meets is a friend. When we go outside if we consider the flowers, birds and everything we see as our friend? When we focus on the negative, we feel lonely. When we focus on the positive, we feel that we are all one.

Practice

Vivekji asked us to journal for some time about the good things about being at home. He asked us if we are alone when we sleep. He told us to write I am alone 3 times in our journal. He told us that we are never alone when we sleep because if we add an l to the l in alone it becomes, I am all one. Vivekji asked us to write I am all one in our notebook 3 times. Vivekji asked us what in our room never goes. The answer is your spirit.

Raw : Find out how your parents gave you your name and what does your name means.

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Notes by Sahana Iyengar

This Class, we learned about Nachiketa. One day, he was praying and ten he met Yama. Normally, when someone meets Yama, they cower in fear. But Nachiketa stands with courage. Yama feels happy about this and decides to give Nachiketa three boons. Nachiketa wants his parents’ minds to be clear, he wants society to be prosperous, and he wants that this place will have peace. Yama is surprised. He thinks this little boy does not know what he is saying. He told Nachiketa that he could have dancers. But Nachiketa was really adamant. So Yama said they were all granted. The values we learnt were virati and Viveka.

Virati means being free, and Viveka means to be rational.

So first of all, being rational is not so hard. If you focus on negative things, you are lonely. And if you focus on positive things, you will be happy, and have friends. Lets base it on this practice.

On a blank sheet of paper, write I am alone in a line if you have notebook paper. If not, just write small. If you only wrote it once, then write it 2 more times. What will happen if you add an L next to the other L in alone. It would become all one. So write I am all one three times. Don’t you see it?

For our RAW, we have to find out why our mom and dad named us our name, and what does it mean. That’s all for this class. Hari Om!