April

April 19

Namaste!

1. ESSAY FOR FINAL DAY: All students should type a 1 page (or less) essay to answer the following question - 'Why am I a Hindu? How do I related to my faith? What would I want to change about my faith?'. Please turn it in to me via email by 05-10-2020 (you can submit sooner as well). I will send back comments to students within a couple of days, and then discuss some salient points raised anonymously. I will also give my own personal reflection on what makes me a proud Hindu.

2. THE LIFE OF PI: Today, the attendance was rather poor. And some students had not seen the movie as well. So we did not discuss it. Attached are some discussion points. Whenever you watch the movie, sit with this document so that you can understand philosophical concepts about the nature of this world.

3. NATURE OF GOD: We discussed the different ways in which Hindus relate to the Lord. See the attached file. The summary points are:

1. Hindu scriptures teach us that God is One. He is our Creator, Destroyer, Preserver. He gives us the fruits of our Karma, and also grants us Moksha. He is Eternal, Imperishable, All-Pervading, Almighty, All-Knowing and abode of Bliss. He pervades the entire Universe, and he also envelopes it from outside.

2. God exists as an infinite Soul and is then called ‘Brahman’. However, it is very difficult for human beings with limited intelligence to worship such a formless spirit and for our convenience, He has also manifested in many different forms through which we can worship Him. In other words, there is no contradiction between the Personal and Impersonal aspects of God.

3. We can worship God in whichever form appeals to us. Hindus who understand the true nature of God do not quarrel over different forms of God. Many Hindus believe that we should rise above the worship of a form of God, and eventually worship him as a Formless Soul which is His true nature.

4. All the forms of God have profound spiritual meaning and symbolism. All of His names are holy and meaningful.

5. Om is a preferred name of the Lord because it includes all of his aspects (forms and formless) and all the meanings and abilities that He has.

6. Hindu Dharma is somewhat unique in not seeing the Divine as an elderly male figure. We worship the Lord also as Devi, and also refer to him in neutral gender (the Sanskrit language has 3 genders).

7. An atheist can be a Hindu in a cultural and traditional sense alone. But Hinduism insists that to obtain Moksha, we must worship and understand God spiritually and practice different ways of spirituality. Therefore, a good Hindu is a Hindu spiritually also.

8. God is very compassionate. He will not punish us just if we worship him in a ‘wrong’ form, or if we do not worship his formless nature. Hindus do not believe like Christians or Muslims that God is vindictive and will punish us if we worship Him in Murtis. Not do we believe like Muslims that God sends 'non believers' worshipping Him in other forms to an eternal Hell. God loves all equally.

9. By tradition, five or six major forms of worship have been established within Hindu traditions. Some Hindus worship God in other forms also, but these other forms are somehow tied to these six major forms in some way or other.

10. This diversity of worship gives Hinduism its famous tolerance for other religions because we Hindus do not believe that non-Hindus worship something other than God. We allow non-Hindus also to worship God in their own way. We believe that all humans worship the same God and there are no ‘false gods’. In this way, we can say that Hinduism is the only true monotheistic tradition in the world, because we worship the God who is the Lord of Hindus, of Muslims, of Christians and so on.

Next week, we will discuss the different ways of approaching the Divine and then switch to a brief description of Karma and Rebirth.

Regards,

Level 9/10 teachers.

January

January 26

First, we did our opening prayers. The students should be prepared to lead them next class! Today we discussed the four Ashramas, the Stages of Life. We talked about how our life priorities change with age and the correct way to follow Ashrama Dharma. We listened to many stories surrounding these concepts and overall had a very good class!

January 5

First, we reviewed some of our terms such as the 4 Purushartas, the sources of Veda, and the 4 Vedas. And acronym for the 4 Vedas is RAYS, something we talked about repeatedly during class. We also looked at the different Vedic scriptures and the different pronunciations.

November

November 24

Today in class we talked about Purusharta, the 4 goals of human life. First is Dharma, which is your duty and virtuous conduct. Next is Artha, which is your basic human needs. Then we have Kama, your happiness and pleasure. And finally we have Moksha, which is liberation,freedom, and your being with Bhagvan. Moksha is the ultimate goal of life. Vishal Uncle told us many stories around these goals. We had a very good class with lots of student participation!

November 10

Today we started class with a history session, talking of moghul empires and history dating back to Babar and Akbar. We talked about the influence of Sanskrit knowledge on science. We talked on the distinction between humans and animals, the law of the jungle(pashu vs manushya). There was also a talk on Dharma, and how we should spend our lives. Probably the most important thing we learned about is the purposes of our life, Dharma, Artha, Kama, and Moksha.

November 3

Today in class, Aayush talked about Vedic Mathematics. We started by learning about Sri Bharati Krishna Tirthaji. Then we learned new techniques for doing multiplication including multiplication by 11, by itself, by itself, base 10, and vertical and crosswise.

Note: I would like to remind all the students to be respectful and polite while the class is going on, and to minimize side conversations which disrupt the class. We had a very interesting class today, and we had to stop multiple times to remind the students to be quiet.

October

October 13

In today's class, all kids had learnt about how Hinduism spread. They talked about Hindu influences in the Asian continent, African influences, and also important Amercian influences as well. We had discussions on how Hinduism is neither monotheistic nor polytheistic, along with many other discussions.

An important thing to note and to bring up is that many students are being a little disrespectful when Vishal Uncle is teacheching, e.g. talking to each other continuously, or being on the phone playing games (being on The phone aside from research for the class).

Thanks, Aayush Goud (Dharma 9/10 volunteer)

October 6

We had a tour of the temple where we learned about the history of the temple and how the board started, how we can explain Hinduism to our non-Hindu friends, and what the different gods symbolize to us. We were encouraged to give our own personal tours to our friends who want to learn more about Hinduism and the temple.

***

This week, the students went on a temple tour. HSMN conducts Temple tours for visitors and educational institutions who want to learn more about Hinduism. The students got a chance, first hand, to see how a tour is conducted. During the tour we discussed about the history of Hinduism, history of HSMN and the our temple, Vastu-Shastra and various Shrines in our temple. Hopefully, this will help the students to give a tour of the temple to their friends, who wish to know more about Hinduism.

September

September 22

Welcome Message

Dear Level 9/10 Dharma Parents,

Namaste and Om! A warm welcome into the class on behalf of all teachers and teenager volunteers. Please note the following:

1. On your computers, please create a folder titled 'HATS 2020 Dharma 09' folder so that you can systematically save all files that we send to you over the year. A lot of this material is for reading and reference and might not be provided to you in hard copy due to the bulk. The files that we sent to you will be numbered so that they can be saved in the correct order by you automatically in your folder. Feel free to share any of this material with your friends or family.

2. Level 10 students in the class will be assigned special projects this year. This will also enable them to clock in some volunteering hours (a signed letter with the hours listed can be taken from me later) while they are also students.

3. The curriculum this year covers the basics of our Dharma. Additionally, the goal is to teach students how a simple Pooja can be performed by them at home on their own. A digital copy of the textbook may be downloaded at the following link (the printed copy that will be give to you later may have slight revisions) so that you can get an idea of the syllabus. Attached are digital copies of the syllabus and expectations that we have from the students. LINK: Dharma_9_UnderstandingHinduDharma.pdf

4. Some additional materials will be distributed tomorrow for you to keep in addition to the textbook that will be provided to you.

5. If the room has space, parents are most welcome to join us in all or a some classes whenever they wish to.

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

Vishal Agarwal