Chinmaya Balavihar Residential Summer Camp: 05/11/18

Children started their journey to the Chinmaya mission Balavihar camp with heart full of excitement, energy & enthusiasm.

Registered participants from all over Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mysore arrived Deenabandhu Devasthanam, Bangalore, the point of departure, worshiped Lord Krishna, collected their ID cards and all set to

Two buses with 92 Children & Volunteers started from Deenabandhu Devasthanam around 9:30am and reached Sandeepany Ashram, Chokkahalli, Kolar at 11:30am, kept the luggages in rooms, refreshed with lime juice & assembled in Omkareshwara Temple for Inauguration.

Blessed are those who can spend dawn to dusk in front of Lord Omkareshwara & 45 feet Chinmaya Ganapati and indeed our children at Balavihar Summer camp were!

Chinmaya Ganapati

Omkareshwara

Beginning was memorable with hearty welcome & thought provoking speech from Swami Aparajitanandaji, our Acharya for Balavihar Summer camp and Shri.Shadakshariji, Trustee of Karnataka Chinmaya Seva Trust & Chairman of Ramanashree group.
Children were pleasantly surprised with the gifts for their swift answers to the intellectual quiz on Mt.Everest conducted by Shri.Shadakshariji. He also continued to narrate what motivated Tensing Norway to climb mount everest on 29th May 1953.

Rashmi Didi, Aishwarya Didi & Shalini Didi gave introduction of camp schedule, rules & regulations and the charge sheet for the volunteers 😊.
After a great start, the entire troop marched to relish the hot & yummy lunch.
Well, Karma yoga pitches in as well and the children were guided to wash their plates & water mugs after every meal. The elder children extended their love to serve food to the Volunteers. Superb!

Children learnt part of Gurustotram, Dasavatara Stotram and Bhajan - Gajanana Gajanana from Sevikas. Wow! full of positive vibrations all around!

Sevika Teaching Bhajan

Swamiji's Lecture:

And here comes the most awaited session - Swamiji’s lecture on Mantra for Success based on Chapter: 3; Verse: 10 from Bhagawad Gita, emphasizing on Yagna Spirit.

Bhagawad Gita - Chapter 3; Verse: 10

saha-yajñāḥ prajāḥ sṛiṣhṭvā purovācha prajāpatiḥ
anena prasaviṣhyadhvam eṣha vo ’stviṣhṭa-kāma-dhuk

The Prajapati (the Creator), having in the beginning (of creation) created mankind together with sacrifices, said, "By this shall you prosper; let this be the milch cow of your desires - kamadhuk" (the mythological cow which yields all desired objects).

Yagna Spirit focuses of 3 points

Pouring out our god given talent and abilities at its best.
Keeping the bigger picture in mind for the welfare of all.
In a spirit of selfless sacrifice

The way Swamiji explained Yagna Spirit with couple of stories was wonderful and definitely have sown seed of selflessness in the children to pave way to success.

Interaction with Swamiji

Swamiji ended the talk with much involved conversation with the children & with little quiz. Happy to see our children walking to the dais fearlessly to unveil their views.

Refer Swami Aparajitanandaji's Lecture on "Mantra for Success - Yagna Spirit" for more details.

We took a short commercial break for milk & snacks followed by an hour of playtime for children all over ashram spaces with badminton, cricket, foodball & skipping.

Playtime

After the play time, re-assembled at the feet of Lord Omkareshwara for the continuation of learning slokas & Bhajans from sevikas.
We had an activity based ice breaking session and the camp children were split into 7 teams with Krishna Namam (Govinda, Gopala, Achyuta, Mukunda, Keshava, Madhava, Murari) and a sevika per team was assigned as a mentor. Henceforth all the activities in the camp will be team-wise.

Up next was the much awaited Camp Song composed by our sevika Rajalakshmi Srikanth & sung by the volunteers which caught the children's attention like a wild fire!

With murmurs of Camp Song, all had dinner and came back to witness Malgudi Days.

In the fast paced world & busy city life, we have wide varieties of processed milk to choose from - pasteurised, unpasteurised, skimmed, toned, full-cream and a combination of these sold from different brands. Our children at Balavihar camp were given the milk straight from the Cow-barn in the Ashram backyard.

Unlike our home, we do not have fridge here to store milk & curds to use for the next day; all throughout the camp, we get them fresh twice a day.

All the kids got accustomed very well and was feeling comfortable living in harmony with nature. They were eating healthy vegetables irrespective of their likes and dislikes, keeping their rooms well organised and neat.
As a crown to all, Acharya, Children, Sevaks and Sevikas are on common consensus that discipline is the way of life for next 7 days and there after.

Discipline starts @ Door step

At 10:00pm was time to wave Good Night! Did they sleep on time was a mystery?

ChinmayaMission is an organization that was founded by Swami Chinmayananda, one of the greatest spiritual masters of the 20th century. Swamiji worked with a single aim of spreading the knowledge of scriptures and all activities of the Mission are oriented towards the same. The classes and activities are tuned to the different age groups.

Chinmaya Mission conducts classes for children in the age group of 5-15 years, under the banner of Chinmaya Balavihar. Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda believed that “Children are not vessels to be filled, but lamps to be lit”. With this aim in mind he started the Balavihar Classes which have now become popular all over the world. These classes imbibe the rich values of the scriptures in the young mind, thereby enabling them to face the challenges of life with a smile.

In the Balavihar classes children meet once a week under the guidance of a trained sevika, in a pure atmosphere of love. These classes impart to the children, the glory of our rich culture and instil in them a deep reverence for our rich heritage. These classes mould the children to face the challenges in life and grow into responsible citizens.

In these classes, children come together once a week and learn under the guidance of a trained sevak / sevika. They are exposed to the rich and glorious heritage of our country and the values of life as prescribed in the scriptures. The following are the activities that are done in the Balavihar classes

1. Chanting of Stotrams, Bhagawad Geeta and Veda Mantras

2. Singing of melodious Bhajans

3. Introducing values of life through Story Telling

4. Activities and Games aimed at bringing out the hidden talents in the children

5. Celebration of important festivals explaining the significance

Apart from these we have activities around the year where children from the different Balavihars come together.

Chinmaya Mission has more than 80 such classes running in various parts of Bangalore.

After 11 years of long break, the most cherished one - Balavihar Residential Camp was announced, extending invite to balavihar & non-balavihar children.
The below links carry the information right from the invite for the Residential Summer Camp to children's experience in detail