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Program Details: Note: Your grade is the one
you will be entering in the new school year.
Registration:
For Participants' Pre-registration click here
For Judges' Pre-registration click here
For Volunteers' Pre-registration click here
Contacts:
For more information please contact
Competition Director: Vivek Vangala 571-421-4051
Competition Director: Rakendu Malladi 703-853-5354
Vaidy Bhaskaran (703) 391-7267
Jothi Radhakrishnan (703) 598-3761
Send E-Mail to yd@balavikas.org
or info@balavikas.org
Rules:
Please bring your own pencils, crayons, and paper. To be consistent, only crayons will be allowed for coloring competition.
If interested in entering Recitation, you can download/print from this web site. If you are encountering problems, call Syamala at (703) 968-7176 and the piece will be sent to you.
Drawing for the coloring competition will be given on the day of the competition, and a 60 minute time period will be allotted for coloring.
Essays for these assigned topics can be prepared and researched ahead of time, however on the day of the competition, no notes or references can be used. Essays must be written in the 60 minute time period allotted.
Speeches must be between 3-5 minutes with a 30-second grace period.
Every religious chant (regardless of language or religion) must be explained in English. These chants must be between 2 - 3 minutes with a 30-second grace period.
Stories with a clear moral and ethical message will be accepted. Stories must be between 2-3 minutes with a 30-second grace period.
Your grade is the one you will be entering in the new school year.
PLEASE NOTE: All competitors will be recognized with Certificates. First three winners in each category will receive trophies.
Recitation Text:
Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labor and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.
That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfill the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty, ignorance, disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labor and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.
- Jawaharlal Nehru
Speech to Parliament of India at the dawn of a new nation on August 15, 1947.
There is something much higher than life even. This life is inferior, material.
You get something, and no man can teach another. It is through experience that we learn. A young man cannot be persuaded that there are any difficulties in life. You cannot persuade the old man that life is all smooth. He has had many experiences. That is the difference.
By the power of meditation we have got to control, step by step, all these things. We have seen philosophically that all these differentiations — spirit, mind, matter, etc. — have no real existences. ... Whatever exists is one. There cannot be many. That is what is meant by science and knowledge. Ignorance sees manifold. Knowledge realizes one. ... Reducing the many into one is science. ... The whole of the universe has been demonstrated into one. That science is called the science of Vedanta. The whole universe is one.
We have all these variations now and we see them — what we call the five elements: solid, liquid, gaseous, luminous, ethereal. After that the state of existence is mental and beyond that spiritual. Not that spirit is one and mind is another, ether another, and so on. It is the one existence appearing in all these variations. To go back, the solid must become liquid. The way the elements evolved, they must go back. The solids will become liquid, etherised. This is the idea of the macrocosm — and universal. There is the external universe and universal spirit, mind, ether, gas, luminosity, liquid, solid.
The same with the mind. I am just exactly the same in the microcosm. I am the spirit; I am mind; I am the ether, solid, liquid, gas. What I want to do is to go back to my spiritual state. It is for the individual to live the life of the universe in one short life. Thus man can be free in this life. He in his own short lifetime shall have the power to live the whole extent of life....
We all struggle. . . . If we cannot reach the Absolute, we will get somewhere, and it will be better than we are now.
Meditation consists in this practice, of dissolving everything into the ultimate Reality — spirit. The solid melts into liquid, that into gas, gas into ether, then mind, and mind will melt away. All is spirit.
- Swami Vivekananda
Medical scientists now really found through their research and experiments a more compassionate mind automatically develops a calm mind, because a compassionate mind creates self-confidence and inner strength. So that brings a more calm mind. That's extremely helpful to maintain a healthy body. With inner strength, more compassion, less anxiety, less stress. No matter what busy work, it will not create much stress.
If you take a more self-centered attitude, then more anxiety, more stress. That is what automatically creates a hypocritical way, saying something nice, doing something different. That destroys trust from others. Without trust, how can you develop genuine friendship? And you yourself will not be happy, but deep inside, a lonely feeling. You can't trust in this, can't trust in this. And you carry your life in a more hypocritical way, and deep inside, much anxiety.
Anxiety brings anger. Anger destroys our health and friendly atmosphere in our home. So, you see, thinking deeper, then compassion is something very, very important. Every human activity carried with compassion then becomes more human and constructive and beneficial.
- His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Speech on Ethics at Santa Clara University
Love is one quality that is common to all human beings, nay, animals, birds, beasts, and even insects. Every living being loves its progeny. And, love is divine. Whoever cultivates love, God manifests in them. It is only the divine quality of love that saves us from sorrows, difficulties, and calamities. Unfortunately, people do not cultivate love and instead go after transient things. “Love is God, live in love.” Worldly possessions give momentary pleasure, but love confers eternal bliss. Real love manifests from the depth of one’s own heart. One has to attain such divine love. Wherever you go, whatever activity you may undertake, let your heart be filled with love. Such a person, wherever he is, whether in the town or in the forest or in the sky or in a deep sea will surely be protected. Divine love neither grows nor diminishes. It always remains the same.
- Sri Sathya Sai Baba
Be Good, Do Good, See Good.
Essay and Speech:
Essay: "Knowledge leads to unity but ignorance to diversity" - Sri. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. How do you stay mindful and aware of other religions' practices while staying committed to Hinduism?
Speech: "Explain the importance of non-violence on a personal and societal level?"
Essay: "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony" - Mahatma Gandhi. How does Hinduism give your life happiness?
Speech: "How do you stay committed to Hinduism in your daily life?"
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q.
What is registration?
It is a very simple process -
participating children have to register their names, and categories either online (recommended) or with
the volunteers manning the registration desk.
Q: What
is religious chanting?
Children have to sing/recite
a bhajan or sloka that has religious theme, and explain the meaning. . The explanation does not have to be word for word translation. It can be as brief as 2 or 4 sentences demonstrating the reciter's understanding of the meaning of the chant. These chants, including explanation, must be between 2 - 3 minutes with a 30-second grace period.
There is no restrictions on selection, and we have listed several
bhajans in this site to get you started. You may select one from these or select one of your own.
Q:
What is story telling?
You can select any short story
that has a moral; You have to conclude the story with the moral. Do
you need help to select a story? Here we got them!! A
click will take you to the wonderful world of short stories ready
for printing/reading.
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