Nov 2, 2025 - Grade 7 (Sunday AM)

Hari Om Parents,

We have been giving the students an incentive to come in early or on time to BalaVihar Sunday mornings by allowing them to try to view stereograms. It's sort of an exercise in concentration as well as trying to see what is right in front of us but not necessarily immediately visible. Only 1 of our students has been able to crack the code so far. Hopefully more of our kids will be able to see at least a few of the stereograms soon.

We began class chanting Om 3 times and our opening prayers. We discussed the importance of our prayers and how it affects our mindset and concentration. We discussed the mean of "Om Sahana Vavathu".

After a brief recap of what we discussed during our previous class, we dove right into Key to Success. The Fact and Our Behaviour

After a brief discussion, we came to the conclusion that all of our body parts belong to us and we don't discriminate and are not partial when it comes to taking care of our physical body. We again had a brief discussion of why we greet each other by saying,"Hari Om" and how we should develop a vision of oneness towards everyone.

Wherever our focus is, that is what we notice. We discussed how a person from a village was able to hear crickets chirping while he was walking down a noisy, crowded, traffic prone Manhattan street with his city cousin. When the city cousin didn't believe him, he dug into his pocket, pulled out a handful of change and dropped the coins on the sidewalk just to see dozens of heads turn to look and check their pockets!

We discussed that many times we search for answers everywhere and sort of don't look within or forget to search internally and when we do, we slowly begin to realise that answers are within us, like the art collector that we talked about.

When the mind is quiet, when the mind and intellect are tuned, sharpened, there are no more agitations which keep us away from the Lord within. We feel bliss, happy.

When we grab more than what we can handle in the world, we may have to lose our life. Wrong habits, when we pursue and encourage, they become giant like the big fish and can cost our life!

When we become quiet, our subjective and objective minds become united and we spontaneously function as the instrument of the Lord, following his command. If we want to be happy we have no choice but to sharpen our instruments so that we can do the right actions and we gain the right results. We had some very interesting discussions that made us all put our thinking caps on.

We went around the class asking what makes each one of us happy. We had a lotta different responses. Then we asked if happiness exists in the object. It was nice to hear both yes amd no. If happiness were in the object, then the same object should bring happiness to everyone. There was silence in the room for a while. Then we talked about how happiness is a state of mind and it comes within. 

We had a brief recap of where we were in the Ramayana. We were introduced to verses 11 and 12 in chapter 15 of the Gita. We then joined the rest of the classes in the temple for Aarati and pledge.

We do not have class on Sunday as it is the NJEA convention long weeked. See the kids back at BalaVihar Sunday the 16th.

Warm Regards,

Rahul and Keerthi