1. SSSE Group 1 Archives
| Spiritual Principle :The primary objective of today’s lesson is to understand God’s all-knowing nature, which encourages us to be mindful of our thoughts, words, and actions. To illustrate this, we shared a student’s experience of Swami’s omniscience, as narrated by Brother Sunder Iyer during one of the Souljourns interviews. A student from a foreign country enrolled in Swami’s college, and during his initial days there, Swami showed him a lot of attention. However, as the student began to adjust to his new routine, Swami gradually started to step back. This apparent indifference from Swami left the student feeling quite uncomfortable and frustrated, as the challenges and discipline of hostel life began to weigh on him. Then as the day of the sports meet drew nearer, the student saw an opportunity to regain Swami’s attention. Skilled in karate, so he formed a group and began practicing daring stunts to perform before Swami. Unfortunately, just a week before the event, he injured both of his legs during practice and found himself bedridden, relying on crutches to move around. This setback brought back all his frustration, as he felt physically hurt and mentally upset for losing the chance to perform before Swami. One day, while he was lying in the sick room, he felt the urge to use the bathroom only to realize that his crutches were missing. Another student with a leg injury had borrowed them and had not yet returned them. Frustrated and unable to take it anymore, he began blaming himself and everything around him, including Swami. Just then, the door opened, and to his astonishment, Swami walked in. Swami then lifted him up, placing one of the boy’s arms around his neck and wrapping his other arm around the boy’s hip, and carried him to the bathroom and brought him back. He then gave assurance to the boy that he is always there for him and would take care of him.After sharing this incident, we reflected on Swami’s all-knowing nature and his unconditional love. We reasoned that Swami is in our hearts, and knows our every thought and feeling. He is always ready to help us whenever we call out to him. However, there is one thing he wants us to be – sincere in our words and actions.Affirmation:
Note to parents : Life application: Spiritual Diary—3 activities–Prayer, Silent sitting, and Keeping bags and shoes in place. Please create a January calendar to continue. Bhajan list 11/3, 12/8 – Saibaba Saibaba sathya sai avatar – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEW19xS0P_Y 11/3 – Vittala Hari Vittala : https://saimelodies.org/Songs/Detail/981 https://saimelodies.org/Songs/Detail/945 |
12/8
| Spiritual Principle :Some people say that money is the basis of the entire world (dhana moolam idam jagat). Others say that righteousness is the basis of the entire world (dharma moolam idam jagat). But the correct statement is that compassion is the basis of the world (daya moolam idam jagat). The five basic elements, the sun, the moon, and night and day all function on the basis of compassion (daya). The heart filled with compassion is divine. Even if others talk to us harshly, we should always speak amiably. One can find fulfillment in life only with compassion and mercy. https://saispeaks.sathyasai.org/discourse/compassionate-heart-temple-godIn continuation with how to light the lamp of love in our hearts, we focussed the class today on kindness. WE started off with an experiment of adding a carrot piece in a cup of water, where it sunk to the bottom. Then the carrot piece was removed and salt was added to the water and mixed well to dissolve. Then the carrot piece was added and now it floated. An analogy was brought with this experiment that sometimes we feel down, upset etc and we also “sink” down because of the words and actions of others and sometimes we do that to others too. How can we help ourselves and others to come up? What is the “salt” in our life which will help us come up and push others up as well. It was explained through a story 2 girls Ellen and Marcia who are 3rd graders. One day at school they were waiting for the audition results of the dramatics club. They were very eager but realized that their name was not on it. Ellen feels very jealous that one of their classmate, Della’s name was on it and remarks that she didn’t deserve it. Della was standing next to them and hears her say and Ellen turns around and sees Della almost in tears. Ellen feels very bad but doesn’t know how to undo what was done. She goes home and asks her mom as she feels very sad and guilty. Her mom says that if kind words cannot be spoken, it’s better not to speak anything. Words cannot be taken back once spoken. Her mom says the only thing she can do now is to apologize to Della. Ellen agrees and next day goes and says sorry to Della. Della says it was ok and it doesn’t matter as she cannot participate because her parents cannot afford the dress they want for her character. Immediately Ellen thinks of the blue dress she has in her closet and offers that to Della. Della initially refuses but Ellen convinces her that it would be. great fit for her and she would be very happy to give it as she can participate in the play.We briefly discussed how we can be kind and be helpful to others and help them come up, so the “salt” in our lives is th kindness which can life people upLife application : Continue the sameAffirmation : I am kind Note to parents : Life application : Please continue with the tracker – Prayer, Silent Meditation, Bags&Shoes in place Bhajan list 11/3, 12/8 – Saibaba Saibaba sathya sai avatar – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEW19xS0P_Y 11/3 – Vittala Hari Vittala : https://saimelodies.org/Songs/Detail/981 https://saimelodies.org/Songs/Detail/945 |
12/1 – No class, ThanksGiving
11/24 – Swami’s birthday , no class
11/17 – Recap class – Quiz
11/10 – No Class, Akhand Bhajan
Class notes from 11/3
Spiritual Principle : In our daily lives, we know that when we become angry, our nerves become weak and feeble and we lose grip over ourselves. Even a moment of anger takes away our strength that we gather by eating good food for three months. Anger not only debilitates us and takes away the merit of our good deeds, but also enfeebles our condition. If we are able to control this anger, we shall be in a position to attain merit through the utterance of the Lord’s name.
https://saispeaks.sathyasai.org/discourse/anger-greatest-enemy/
We had a wonderful class today, as a continuation to the last class on anger and its management. Recapped how Narakasura’s anger brought him down. We talked about what happens to our body and mind when we are angry/mad, it increases heartbeat, we feel something boiling inside and we are unable to think clearly and we end up yelling or saying bad words. Anger burns up all the nutrition that we have acquired over couple of months by eating food. So, it’s not worth getting angry and lose our energy. Uncle Lion’s story, the Nailed Fence was narrated – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idVfrXel-kU. Just like while pulling the nail out, it leaves the hole, when we get angry it hurts the other person and also hurts us as well. So, we concluded that it is ok to feel angry but it’s important to know how to deal with it. There are several ways, we can deal with it –
Relaxation (listening to music, playing an instrument , take a walk etc),
Distraction ( do your hobby, move away from the place),
Communication (talking to an elder and express how you feel),
Thinking (Think about the whole episode that made you angry and feel what differently could be done, is it worth getting angry).
We talked about the anger thermometer – different levels of anger and what we can do in each of the situation. We came up with one tip: Whenever we are angry and want to use a bad word, we decided to try saying a funny made up word , eg : googlicious, googoogaga, bubblybubble 🙂
Life application : Please add one more line item this month – Put bag/shoes in its place, starting today. We talked in length about why we do the tracker, please ask them
Affirmation : I am happy
Note to parents :
Parents, please talk to your children about the story and then techniques that you use to manage your anger or share any experience/story. Please talk to them about the tracker
Life application : Please continue with the tracker – Prayer, Silent Meditation
C
Class notes from 10/27.
Spiritual Principle :When the lamp of love is shining, God manifests. Keeps it burning bright and pure. God persists. Allows all to light their lamps from it, God showers grace – SSS v.292
We had a fun filled class on significance of Diwali – Festival of Lights and also did a small celebration with lights 🙂
We started the class by asking how each of the families celebrated Diwali and how they all felt with festivities. One of them common theme was lighting lamps apart from of course sweets :). We talked about if they knew the story about why this festival is celebrated and children immediately talked about Rama/Sita/Lakshmana’s return to AYodhya after the victory. The other story behind the festival is about Narakasura who was the son of Mother Earth, who got the boon from Lord Vishnu to be invincible. Narrated the story of how his evil ways brought down his downfall from the hands of Krishna’s consort Satyabhama. One aspect Swami talked in many discourses is about his anger and how it weakened him and hence his failure. Just like how we light lamps to dispel darkness in our homes and everywhere, the festival reminds us how we have to remove the “darkness” from our hearts by lighting the lamp of love. We specifically talked about how anger can “darken” our heart and is an internal enemy we have to keep away from. Children shared different ways that they manage anger – distracting by doing something they like (eg: drawing, playing with toys, watching tv), think happy thoughts , taking deep breaths, or reach out to elders. We will continue talking about anger and how it negatively impacts us in the next class. Finally we had a fun song we did some dance steps with the t-lights :).
Affirmation : I am happy
Note to parents :
Please talk to children about what lighting the lamp of love in our hearts mean to you and share your thoughts on impact of anger. Also you could question them on narakasura story, they seem to have gotten all the details of the characters and specifically ask them the name of his kingdom :), it may be a new one for you too :), it was for me as I learnt it myself as I was going through the story
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