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